Threads reaches landmark 150 million active monthly users

Threads has announced it has reached the milestone of 150 million active monthly users.

The social platform from Facebook and Instagram owner, Meta, was introduced as an alternative to Elon Musk’s X and since its launch in July, it has maintained steady growth.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided the update during his company’s Q1 earnings call this week, as Threads begins to test a feature to let users auto-archive posts after a set time. A selected number of people are taking part in the trial allowing users to manually select an individual post to archive or automatically store all posted content.

Despite its status as a rival to X,  Threads may struggle to take on its rival due to its reduction in news content, which has gradually been dialed back. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri stated late last year, said Threads would  “not amplify news on the platform” reducing its appeal to social media users who want to quit X.

Unless Meta decides to muscle in on news and real-time information, the lifeblood of X, it appears unlikely to fulfill any potential to move ahead of its rival.

Musk’s platform is said to have 550 million active users which shows the distance Threads still has to travel, even if there is some doubt cast on the veracity of that figure.

Can Threads really overtake X/Twitter?

Last week, Meta introduced its new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant across all its platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, but it will also have to decide on the future direction of Threads.

If the company decides that it only wants it to be an alternative option for users, its growth appears to be limited as it is very difficult to detract from X’s popularity without effectively replicating what it does. There is significant opposition to the approach taken by Musk as well as the changes he has made to the platform, but users flock to X because it remains the online oracle for live news.

Image credit: Dave Adamson/Unsplash

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