With Threads passing its 20 month mark recently, and amid ongoing discussion about the potential for the app’s growth, and the relative decline of the platform formerly known as Twitter, it’s worth checking in on exactly where the real-time social market is at, and what kind of growth Threads, X, and Bluesky are currently seeing.
So, is Threads still on track to defeat X?
Well, definitely its user growth momentum is more significant:
As you can see in this chart, since launching in July 2023, Threads has seen steadily accelerating growth, with the app now up to 320 million monthly active users. Threads is also seeing strong download momentum, and the signs do suggest that Threads is on track to exceed 400 million users this year.
Though that would still leave it a fair way off of X, which, as of last month, is now claiming 600 million active users.
Which is a significant audience, but as you can see, X has only added around 50 million users in the last year, versus 200 million on Threads. So Threads’ growth rate is significantly higher, which makes sense, as it’s the newer of the two, but it also bodes well, at this stage, for its acceleration in the longer-term race.
But based on these figures, Threads is unlikely to catch X this year. That is unless the app gains some significant growth momentum, and with Threads putting a bigger focus on sports and real-time content of late (sports are the most discussed topic on X), that’s also a possibility.
Bluesky is also still seeing steady growth momentum, though it remains a long way off the other two.
Bluesky went from 5 million users in February last year, to 35 million now, and it’s also added 5 million more in the first four months of this year. So people are still signing up, though its growth momentum has slowed from the rapid acceleration it saw in the last quarter of 2024, when it was adding an extra 5 million per month for four four-month stretch.
That could suggest that Bluesky’s momentum is now gone, leaving X and Threads to battle it out for supremacy, though a misstep from either will likely see Bluesky’s growth get another shot in the arm at some stage.
(Also, Mastodon, the other great decentralized social hope, is currently sitting on less than 900k active users).
But really, in terms of mass appeal, we’re talking X versus Threads, and based on the growth charts, Threads is seemingly on track to win out, long term, with X’s growth slowing significantly, and even that growth data being somewhat questionable. Because X has repeatedly shared conflicting usage data, so it’s hard to know if it’s reported figures are actually correct.
But going on what Elon and Co. are saying, Threads should still be on track to exceed X’s monthly user counts by the end of next year, though a shift in momentum could see it happen even faster.
Unless Meta makes a mistake, and it loses the thread.
