Meta’s Threads Reach 175M MAUs Ahead of First Anniversary

Meta Platforms Inc.’s latest social media platform, Threads, showed growth ahead of its first anniversary, with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealing that the microblogging platform garnered 175 million monthly active users (MAUs) over the year.

The feat added to the Instagram app’s potential to outperform Tesla Inc. chief executive Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

The X challenger gained 100 million users less than a week after its launch on July 5, partly due to the ease of creating a Threads profile using an existing Instagram account. However, the platform has also seen some early users leave.

Threads’ MAUs reached over 150 million in April, and renowned singer-songwriter Taylor Swift joined the platform at the same time.

Since its introduction, Threads has been described as a ‘less angry’ place for users to connect and converse.

Zuckerberg recently further stepped up the platform’s capabilities by bringing it into the federated universe, or the ‘fediverse,’ allowing users in 100 countries to cross-post from Mastodon servers and other federated social channels.

Threads Still Require More Momentum

Threads’ user base has steadily grown, but the monthly user numbers only provide a small idea of its popularity, as daily users and average user time have yet to be shared with the public.

The lack of information on such vital metrics signaled that the platform might be receiving significant passing traffic from infrequent users.

A US-based digital analytics firm observed lackluster engagement on Threads the month prior despite the social network expanding globally and offering new features to increase its user count.

Data from the market research company showed that users logged about three sessions and seven minutes per day on the Threads app in June, declining around 79% and 65%, respectively, from July 2023.

Meta employees have also reportedly stated that the platform’s growth continued to rely heavily on Threads being advertised on Instagram.

Executives of the Facebook parent are allegedly considering enabling ads in Threads next year, but such a plan remains largely uncertain. Still, the platform potentially connecting to Instagram’s current ads system may provide advertisers with a safer alternative to X.