Instagram Threads now has more than 130 million monthly active users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said was announced during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call today. The text-based social networking app is one of several new projects developed after Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, now called X, where it competes with various startups and open source projects, including Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr . , Post, Spill and more.
Zuckerberg said Threads is “steadily growing,” though he characterized the app as blowing up before Meta is ready.
“I will note that Threads now has more people actively using it today than it did at its original peak,” Zuckerberg said. “So I think this is on track for great success.”
Last quarter, Zuckerberg also spoke highly of Threads, saying he believed the app had a good chance of reaching 1 billion users within a few years. At the time, Threads had 100 million monthly active users.
Meta said its family of apps, which also includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, was used by 3.19 billion people daily in the fourth quarter, from 3.14 billion saw the quarter ending September 2023. Monthly active users were at 3.98 billionabove 3.96 billion the previous quarter.
We’ve seen signs that Threads is gaining traction in recent weeks. Application intelligence provider Appfigures found that the Instagram-owned app had tripled its downloads in December, becoming the No. 6 most downloaded app this month on the Apple App Store and Google Play. X, still struggling with its rebranding, was No. 36.
Image Credits: Appfigures
Leveraging Instagram’s friend graph, Threads had a traffic record, reaching 100 million registered users within its first five days last July. However, interest in Threads began to wane in the fall, only returning to growth as Meta gave it a boost by promoting Threads’ viral posts to Facebook users. This likely helped the app secure its place in the top 10 most downloaded apps worldwide in December.
Zuckerberg’s comments were likely intended to head off concerns that had built up during the Threads slump, which led some critics to call it premature dead. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore — and a third tracker says Threads has an est A total of 160 million users.
Concerning Meta’s earnings, the company reported revenue of $40.1 billion in the quarter ending December 2023, topping analysts’ estimates of $39.18 billion and earnings of $5.33 per share, versus estimates of $4.96. Net income was $14.02 billion. Revenue for the full year 2023 was $134.90 billion.
Meta also announced it first cash dividend $0.50 per share, which will be paid in March to Meta shareholders.
