Threads is nearing X’s daily app users, new data shows

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, Instagram’s Threads is making significant strides in the mobile app arena, posing a formidable challenge to its primary competitor, X (formerly Twitter). New data from market intelligence provider Similarweb indicates that Threads is rapidly closing the gap in daily active users on mobile devices.

According to Similarweb’s findings for June 2025, Threads’ mobile app, available on both iOS and Android, recorded an impressive 115.1 million daily active users. This figure represents a remarkable 127.8% year-over-year growth, highlighting Threads’ accelerating user adoption. In contrast, X reached 132 million daily active users during the same period, but experienced a concerning 15.2% decline in year-over-year growth.

While Threads and X dominate the discussion, decentralized social network Bluesky also registered substantial growth, expanding by 372.5% year-over-year as of June 2025. However, its global daily active user base remains considerably smaller, with estimates showing just 4.1 million daily actives. Bluesky’s own data indicates a total of over 37 million registered users.

Bluesky saw a notable surge in users late last year, driven by individuals leaving X in protest of its owner, Elon Musk. This initial boost, however, began to slow earlier this year. More recently, Bluesky has faced criticism for becoming perceived as a left-leaning echo chamber, a factor that might have encouraged some users to migrate back to Threads.

Despite these shifts, Bluesky maintains long-term potential due to its unique infrastructure, which supports a more open and user-configurable social networking experience. However, the immediate and most intense competition for market share is clearly unfolding between Threads and X. The new mobile data strongly suggests that Threads is positioned to become a more significant rival to X across iOS and Android, potentially capturing a larger share of advertising revenue, which currently serves as Meta’s sole monetization strategy for Threads.

While Threads demonstrates robust performance on mobile, X retains a significant advantage on the web. Similarweb’s data for June 2025 reveals that X commanded 145.8 million average daily web visits worldwide, dwarfing Threads’ 6.9 million average daily web visits globally. In this context, Threads is only slightly ahead of Bluesky’s 5.3 million average daily web visits. This disparity suggests that Threads has prioritized its mobile app experience since its launch, which preceded its web app, and continues to see greater user engagement there.

The U.S. market presents a slightly different picture. Bluesky recorded 2.4 million average daily web visits from U.S. users in June, surpassing Threads’ 985,200. Nevertheless, X remained the dominant force with 33.1 million average daily web visits in the U.S. On the mobile front, the competition between Threads and X in the U.S. was tighter. Threads recorded 15.3 million U.S. daily active users on iOS and Android, compared to X’s 22.9 million. Bluesky had a much smaller presence with just 1.1 million U.S. daily active mobile users.

Bluesky’s long-term trajectory may depend less on short-term surges fueled by protests against other networks and more on its sustained investment in building a broader, open social ecosystem. Users who join Bluesky purely as an alternative to X might not remain if it doesn’t immediately fulfill their needs, potentially returning to X or moving to Threads. Conversely, those drawn by Bluesky’s underlying technology and its vision for an open social network are more likely to stay and witness its evolution.

In terms of official user metrics, Meta’s latest earnings report states that Threads boasts 350 million monthly active users, having added 30 million in the most recent quarter. X, being a private company, is no longer obligated to publicly disclose its metrics. However, Elon Musk claimed last year that X had reached 600 million monthly active users.