Threads approaches 175 million users

To celebrate its one-year anniversary, Threads announces over 175 million monthly active users.

Presented as an alternative to X (ex-Twitter) after Elon Musk introduced numerous changes to the social network, Threads, launched on July 3, 2023, continues to grow. After revealing in April that Threads had over 150 million monthly active users, up from 130 million reported in February, Mark Zuckerberg said in response to a message from Adam Mosseri, the boss of Instagram and Threads, thanking his teams that the fledgling social network now totals 175 million monthly active users. The CEO was delighted with this news, adding " What a year !

This announcement echoes another that has not gone unnoticed. Elon Musk's announcement that X has now reached 600 million monthly active users. Half of these, or 300 million users, use the platform on a daily basis. However, Musk did not specify whether this figure included automated accounts or spam bots.

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Threads: 63% of publications are text

Beyond the figures, Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to give an insight into how Internet users use the social network: most users prefer text to images. In fact, 63% of the social network's posts are text-only. However, this doesn't mean that images are absent, as one in four publications includes at least one image. Meta also reported that over 50 million tags have been created, the top three being PhotographyThreads, BookThreads and GymThreads.

Although the monthly active users metric alone is not enough to fully assess Threads' performance, it does show that it is in an upward phase. But while Threads has introduced numerous features since its launch , such as a web app, trending topics and an edit button, it's essentially to its close link with Instagram that the platform owes its success for the time being.

Threads struggles to find its identity

Although Threads is growing and the figures for its first anniversary are encouraging, the conversation app is struggling to convince. The reason: its identity, or rather its lack of identity. Indeed, to date, X remains the most popular platform for bouncing off current events: " Sports and political discussions are still very active on X and, given the Olympics, Euro 2024 and this year's US presidential election (among other major events), X will probably continue to attract users," says Debra Aho Williamson of Sonata Insights. For its part, Threads seems to be refusing to enter the political arena (too divisive?) by limiting the propagation of political content. Political messages from accounts that users do not follow are hidden by default. According to Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg, this consensual approach is holding back the social network, which is struggling to find "its own identity". The platform needs " to forge an identity that's not just 'not X', nor just an extension of Instagram ". She adds,"Threads still relies heavily on Instagram to drive traffic and engagement, with notifications and links to entice network users to go chat on Threads. There aren't really any content creators specifically for Threads either, which would make the app a must-have for consumers.

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