Meta's Threads now has over 175 million monthly active users, says Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg expects Threads to become the next billion-user social network in its suite of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on July 3 that Threads now has more than 175 million monthly active users (MAUs), highlighting the growth witnessed by the social app designed to challenge Elon Musk-owned X, previously known as Twitter.

This announcement comes as Threads is set to complete one year since its launch. The figure stood at over 150 million MAUs in April and about 100 million MAUs in October.

Meta-owned Instagram launched Threads in July 2023 and achieved 100 million sign-ups in less than five days, making it the fastest-growing consumer product in the world. However, its usage declined significantly in the subsequent months.

This was partly due to the Threads' initial feature set, which lacked several basic features, including keyword search, a fully functional web application, and the ability to support multiple accounts.

However, in subsequent months, Meta went on to rapidly add these features to Threads, along with others such as trending topics, a chronological feed, and an edit button for all users.

These changes have resulted in usage and downloads bouncing back on the app. In recent months, Meta has also been promoting posts from Threads on its video and photo-sharing app Instagram, which has also likely fuelled the growth of Threads.

The Meta chief expects Threads to become the next billion-user social network in its suite of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

In the past few weeks, Meta has also rolled out two major initiatives - Threads API and open social web (fediverse) - which is expected to further drive growth of the social platform.

Threads API, launched in June, enables third-party developers, creators, and brands to extend the functionality of the platform by building their own unique integrations, managing their Threads presence at scale, and sharing content with their communities.

This launch came after Twitter (now X) abruptly stopped offering developers free access to its API in February 2023 and introduced new paid APIs at up to $42,000 a month.

It led to many companies, including Microsoft and Sony, pulling back their Twitter/X integrations and some firms even shut down third-party clients over the past year.

Last month, Threads also expanded its open social web rollout to over 100 countries, enabling people to share their posts to other federated platforms that are powered by the ActivityPub protocol such as Mastodon.

This expansion came three months after Meta introduced the feature to users in select countries including the United States in March, following a company test in December 2023. The feature is part of the social networking giant's push to make its text-based conversation app interoperable.

With this rollout, Threads became Meta's first app to be compatible with rival services, enabling users to interact with a broader community beyond the app's existing user base as well as have the option to transfer their content to another service in the future, thereby giving consumers more control over their data and choose online communities that align with their values.

In May, Threads also rolled out a TweetDeck-like interface with pinned columns to all its web users, in a bid to attract more power users to its platform. This interface lets users pin separate columns for their favourite searches, tags, accounts, saved posts, and notifications.