Threads Tops ChatGPT's Record With 100 Million Users in 5 Days

Meta’s Threads passed the 100-million user mark this weekend, five days after launching.

“That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the platform Monday (July 10).

This breakneck growth dethrones the record held by OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the fast-growing app, Reuters reported Monday. That company took two months to get 100 million sign-ups.

Threads, a text-based platform seen as a rival to Twitter, debuted last week, getting 10 million sign-ups in its first seven hours. Zuckerberg said last week that he hopes to see Threads surpass Twitter’s 300 million-plus user count.

“There should be a public conversations app with 1 billion-plus people on it,” he said on the new social media platform Thursday (July 6). “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

Meta Vice President of Product Colton Hayes went into more detail about the company’s vision last week, saying several influential Instagrammers had been clamoring for a text-based app.

For its part, Twitter has greeted the arrival of Threads with a letter from its attorney accusing Meta of misappropriating trade secrets. Twitter claimed that Threads was built by former Twitter workers who were tasked with copying the social media app and warned Meta not to scrape Twitter user data.

Twitter owner Elon Musk attacked the platform as a concept in response to a tweet over the weekend.

“Threads is just Instagram minus pics, which makes no sense, given that thirst pics are the main reason people use that app,” he tweeted Saturday (July 8). “How many times have you read comments on Insta pics and wished there were more? Personally, never.”

Accurate assessment. Threads is just Instagram minus pics, which makes no sense, given that thirst pics are the main reason people use that app.

How many times have you read comments on Insta pics & wished there were more? Personally, never.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2023

Twitter had close to 240 million monetizable daily active users as of July last year before Musk bought the platform and took the company private, Reuters reported. Data suggests usage has fallen since then.

As these companies — and their advertisers — battle for consumers’ attention, they may want to consider research by PYMNTS, which found the reach of social media is limited when it comes to convincing people to make purchases.

Forty-three percent of consumers, or 110 million people, browse social media to find goods and services, while 36 million end up purchasing those goods and services.

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