Threads in the fast lane, passing X with daily U.S. users

Meta’s Threads is closing the gap on its main competitor and is now hosting more daily active users in the U.S. than Elon Musk’s X.

According to new data from Apptopia, which researches social media platforms, Threads has blown by X in America’s daily active user lane. Threads has seen a stable rise in its users and now houses around 28 million daily active users compared with X’s 22 million.

Apptopia’s data covers only U.S. users, and it’s likely that X, which has been around since 2006, has far more users globally than Threads. X reports 250 million daily users globally, with Meta claiming 130 million for Threads.

While Meta’s fledgling “Twitter killer” has a long way to go before it knocks X off its pedestal, Threads has seen unprecedented growth for a social media platform while X has been mired in relative stagnation.

Part of the issue was the name change. Soon after Elon Musk took over what was then known as Twitter, it became X. The name change caused some confusion on app stores. This led to a decrease in monthly downloads for X and let Threads grow even faster.

Helping Threads’ growth was its attachment to Meta’s popular Instagram platform. When Threads launched last year, users were able to effortlessly create an account connected to their Instagram profile. Meta’s strategy bolstered the platform’s numbers, with the site claiming to have over 100 million users within a few days.