Report from a market intelligence company Similar Web suggests that Meta’s Threads now has more daily usage than Elon Musk’s X on mobile devices. While X still dominates Threads on the web, the Threads mobile app for iOS and Android has continued to see growth in daily active users in recent months.
Similarweb data shows that Threads had 141.5 million daily active users on iOS and Android as of January 7, 2026, after months of development, while X has 125 million daily active users on mobile devices.
This appears to be the result of long-term trends, rather than a reaction to the recent X controversies, where users were discovered using the platform’s built-in artificial intelligence, Grok, to create non-consensual nude images of women, including, at times, minors. Concern over deepfake images has now sparked California’s attorney general to open an investigation in Grok, following similar surveys from other areas, such as the UKEU, India, Brazil and many more.
The drama at X has also led social networking startup Bluesky to see a spike in app installs in recent days.
Instead, Threads’ push into everyday mobile usage can be attributed to other factors, including multiple promotions from Meta’s biggest social apps like Facebook and Instagram (where Threads regularly advertises to existing users), its focus on creators, and the rapid rollout of new features. Over the past year, Threads has added features like interest-based communities, better filters, DMs, long-form text, disappearing posts, and recently spotted playtesting.
Combined, the daily active user increases suggest that more people are using Threads on mobile as a more regular habit.
According to Meta’s official numbers, the tech giant said in August 2025 that Threads had reached 400 million monthly active users. The company then reported in October last year that Threads had 150 million daily active users.
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Growth trends have continued for several months. Similarweb last summer reported that Threads was closing the gap with X on mobile devices after posting 127.8% year-over-year growth at the end of June 2025.
Relatedly, Similarweb noted that X is still ahead of Threads in the US, but the gap is narrowing. A year ago, X had twice as many daily active users in the US as it does now.
Additionally, Threads has little traction on the web, while X maintains a fairly stable web audience with around 150 million daily web visits, according to Similarweb data. As of earlier this week (January 13), X had 145.4 million daily web visits, while Threads had 8.5 million daily web visits on Threads.com and Threads.net combined.
