Instagram's Threads broke the 100-million-user barrier in a matter of days

Threads for Instagram
(Image credit: Future)

Instagram's Threads, an app that appears to have launched in an attempt to compete with Twitter, now has more than 100 million users.

The number, which was reached within just five days following last week's go-live, was confirmed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It was also confirmed by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri.

However, neither have confirmed how many people are actively using the service which might suggest that the figure is considerably lower than the 100 million mark.

Mosseri's Threads post suggests that even he didn't expect 100 million people to join Threads so quickly.

"100 million people signed up for Threads in five days," Mosseri said. "I’m not sure I can wrap my mind around that fact. It’s insane; I can’t make sense of it."

Zuckerberg's thoughts were similar to Mosseri's, with his Threads post saying that he "can't believe it's only been 5 days" since the service went live.

Signing up to Threads is of course extremely simple if you already have an Instagram account, something that could have helped the Twitter competitor reach such a high number in such a short period of time. It's still very early days for Threads and it will now be up to Zuckerberg and Mosseri to make sure it builds on this early momentum.

It'll have to do it in an environment where Twitter owner Elon Musk isn't taking the competition too well. He's already taken legal action, claiming that Instagram hired former Twitter employees and is using trade secrets against it.

As for Threads, you can try it out for yourself now. It's available in more than 100 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom, but plenty of countries are not currently supported. E.U. member countries are excluded over regulatory concerns related to the use of users' data.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.