Threads is nearing X's daily app users, new data shows | Hacker News Reader

Threads is nearing X's daily app users, new data shows

techcrunch.com

39 pointsMilnerRoute31 comments

Cooked numbers due to forced/accidental engagement (in the US at least).

Can you go into more detail?

The Instagram app surfaces Threads posts and automatically redirects you to the Threads app if you click. Threads web visitors is very low compared to rivals, it's mostly this Instagram clickbait tactic driving the numbers for the mobile app.

And how many bots are on Threads vs X?

I can't remember having seen any engagement on twitter/X in years. And that's with thousands of alleged "followers"

All the sponsored threads posts I get on instagram read like linkedin slop so I assume it is mostly all bots on threads.

I recently deleted my Reddit account after a million years because every other post was obviously AI generated "am I the jerk" posts (use your imagination for variations on "jerk").

I used to participate in some subreddits where support is offered for a couple of chronic illnesses I have but even those are "doctor says it's X, am I cooked".

Just over it.

And the threads posts look like expanded instagram comments!

Those Threads clickbait posts are always some inflammatory cliffhanger too. Just join threads so you can respond angrily!

Anecdata:

I never intend to go to Threads, but am tricked at least once a week by different confusing links in Instagram to going there.

I read a lot of different news and social sites and can't remember ever seeing a link to threads.

I've looked into it, it's mostly from Asia and South America. It's not surprising, Facebook is big there so they probably use their reach with the big app to push their own twitter clone.

I won't be surprised if thread userbase grow over twitter user base in the next year, but their ad revenues will still lag behind as a North american or EU user is "worth" more (a lot more if from the US) for advertisers.

[1]:

  name    tfic%  pop        pop%   B/D
  Taiwan  0.1056 23112793   0.0028 37.61x
  Japan   0.0822 123103479  0.0150  5.50x
  Vietnam 0.0413 101598527  0.0123  3.35x
  USA     0.0367 347275807  0.0422  0.87x
  Brazil  0.0229 212812405  0.0259  0.89x
  Others  0.7112 7423710059 0.9019  0.79x
  (total) 0.9999 8231613070 1.0000  1.00x

Looks like, Taiwan took it, maybe Japan too.

I'm guessing that the moral of the story is, social media cannot be multilingual/multinational. Either one culture dominates, or the system don't work.

1: https://www.similarweb.com/website/threads.net/#geography

edit: edited to add column C, D, E from [2]; Column E, B/D, is traffic divided by population count as share of world's, which I think should indicate how much differences in popularity there is.

2: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...

Why is that the moral?

Added columns C, D, E to the parent comment to address this - the original chart looked as if its popularity is evenly distributed across nations, but after normalizing by population, it's a lot more clear that it hit a jackpot in Taiwan, and nothing is happening anywhere else.

It's a pattern that you'll notice after a while. US uses Messenger, EU uses WhatsApp, Japan uses LINE, and Korea uses KakaoTalk. Twitter is still like 30% American and 20% Japanese, Facebook is 30% Indian and 20% American, etc. Functional differences between those competing services are trivial, so there shouldn't be reasons any of those apps cannot dominate the world completely in each field and be multilingual and massively multi-national, yet that just don't happen somehow.

I don't believe this.

I appreciate the Fediverse integration of threads. I follow a couple threads accounts through Mastodon and it works well (at least for passive reading, I don't know the current state of how replies/boosts/favorites federate back to threads).

For example, here is author John Green's threads account viewed through mastodon.social: https://mastodon.social/@johngreenwritesbooks@threads.net

I just quickly tried to look up the current state of Threads-Mastodon integration, and I think that this is the current state:

- Threads users have to individually opt-in to seeing Fediverse content

- Threads keeps Fediverse content in a separate feed and section of the replies

- Many Fediverse servers do not federate with Threads

- Threads and Mastodon users can search for each other

- Threads and Mastodon users can boost/like each other's posts

- Threads and Mastodon users can reply to each other's posts, but I don't think replying to replies works yet

Corrections welcome. I could have some details wrong.

I view this as something that Meta would turn off in a heartbeat if they gained a dominant position in the market, but I also think that a possible end-state for microblogging is Threads + Bluesky + Twitter + Truth Social + WordPress + Tumblr + Flipboard + various independent Mastodon and other Fediverse instances all federating with each other.

And I appreciate that so far Meta has put in the work towards seeing how that would work.

https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/its-now-easier-see-more-fe...

https://about.fb.com/news/2024/06/what-is-the-fediverse/

https://www.engadget.com/threads-can-now-show-replies-from-m...

There is something going on.

Just checked and Threads in Android play store is 15th in the top downloaded charts (free apps, all categories, UK location).

X is 123rd in the charts

So guessing Meta is putting their existing userbase under strong pressure to install Threads?

Threads is actually gaining in Asia, apart from Japan where Twitter or X managed to capture their audience very early on. The rest of Asia Twitter never gave a damn. And that is where Threads comes in.

115 million active users yet I can't recall ever seeing a Threads screenshot. Even on Elon-hostile places like Imgur and Reddit, the overwhelming majority of screenshotted memes are from X.

News TV channels in Taiwan that I usually watch, very often use videos from Threads for local news reporting (stuff sent in by the public). X-originated ones pretty much disappeared for the same use. This doesn't account for millions of users (by a long shot), but definitely a noticeable shift.

Did you ever think that "what you see" is not the whole reality or even close to important to the state of the world?

You probably aren't their target demographic. Are you from the US or from EU?

It's probably country specific. The country you live in might be on Twitter, but many are on Threads.

Social networks live on network effects. You don't choose a social network, you just go where everyone else is.

It's just a bias of what cultures you are more exposed to. The same with messaging apps, different societies huddled in different apps.

X is designed for controversy. Threads is designed for anti-controversy. Meta has deliberately discouraged and downplayed politics on Threads. Screenshots are mostly of controversial stuff.

LOL yea no that's not what my threads looks like. It's 99% politics.

The one difference is that threads basically uses instagrams engagement model and bubble up stuff you 'like' or would 'agree with' rather than very confrontational stuff. It's still politics. Just your own view of it.

That one difference is a big difference.

See also: "we won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads" https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-ou...

I forgot about Threads. I'm surprised that's still a thing.

"In June 2025, Threads’ mobile app for iOS and Android saw 115.1 million daily active users, representing 127.8% year-over-year growth; X reached 132 million daily actives, as its year-over-year growth declined by 15.2%."

doubt

Threads is for mobile? There's an app? Mobile, why do I care about mobile?

Mobile's for phone calls, right? And a mobile phone has a tiny screen, is short on electrical power, and has the worst substitute for a keyboard back before the first typewriter!!!

Instead, I type this using an excellent 32" screen and a really good keyboard got years ago with a Gateway computer!!!

A joke, folks!

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