Threads, the meta social network, dethrones X in the United States

X, the former Twitter, taken over and renamed by Elon Musk, has just been overtaken in the United States by Threads, the social network launched last July by Mark Zuckerberg. The founder of Facebook announced that he had passed the 150 million user mark and his ambitions go much further for Threads.

The arrival of Taylor Swift on Threads: what a symbol, nine days ago, with already nearly 10 million followers. We are probably experiencing a major tipping point, to the detriment of the X network which is unable to stem the bleeding. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk a year and a half ago, the old Twitter has lost almost a quarter of its users, 23% precisely.

There were only 556 million left at the end of last year: and Facebook (almost 3 billion). 556 million users for X including 13.7 million in France, 12th country in number of users of the historic social network.

The billion users in Threads’ sights

At the time, Threads, which was only available in the United States and the United Kingdom, did not yet appear in the rankings but in December 2023, Mark Zuckerberg’s network arrived in Europe, an even more popular market. bigger than the United States with its 450 million potential users. The Threads application for iPhone immediately found itself number 1 on the Apple App Store.

What is Mark Zuckerbeg’s ambition for Threads? Without being too mistaken, we can imagine that it is already targeting a billion users with, in the meantime, the expected and probable arrival of advertising. Since its launch, the competitor of the former Twitter has been without it, but for how much longer? Mark Zuckerbeg didn’t want to rush.

Close ties with Instagram

And it’s true that without advertising and without the underlying aggressiveness on X, we feel pretty good about Threads which also benefits from close ties with its big brother, Instagram. Threads collects new subscribers every day, from the social network dedicated to photos and videos, with 2 billion users. In four months, Threads went from 18 to 28 million daily users in the United States: +55% since December. 28 million for Threads compared to only 22 million for the old Twitter.

Does the decline of the X network represent an underlying trend? Yes, clearly, in the United States anyway. If we consider the number of users, no longer daily but monthly, X fluctuates between 130 and 140 million. And so, with 150 million, Threads has doubled the old Twitter. No official figures for France or Europe. On the other hand, on a global scale, they are dizzying.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, every day, more than 3.2 billion people around the world use at least one of its applications: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and now also Threads.