But Threads has benefited from its integration with Instagram, Meta’s photo-sharing social network that had an estimated 135 million active U.S. users in May. Users are able to sign up for a Threads account by linking their Instagram account.
Despite not being available in Europe yet because of European Union data privacy regulations, Threads has reached 100 million users faster than any other app. The speed of its growth handily beat artificial intelligence app ChatGPT, which took two months to reach that mark, according to a UBS study.
Threads still trails other social media platforms by a wide margin worldwide. Insider Intelligence’s May estimates peg Facebook with more than 2 billion users, Instagram at 1.4 billion and Twitter at more than 363 million.
The debut of Threads has come while Twitter’s popularity may be declining. Matthew Prince, CEO of network security firm Cloudflare, tweeted a graph showing that Twitter’s traffic ranking has gradually fallen this year.
Twitter did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment Monday.
It has been a rocky several months for Twitter since Elon Musk bought the company, with a flurry of text-based alternatives attracting attention this year. Threads has drawn a particularly strong response from Twitter — shortly after Threads launched, Twitter threatened legal action against Meta.