Instagram’s Threads app reaches 100 million users within just five days

Instagram’s text-based app Threads has achieved the mark of 100 million sign-ups in just five days. The Twitter rival was launched on June 6 (or June 5 in the Americas), according to a tracker.

Mark Zuckerberg noted on the first day that the app attracted 2 million sign-ups in two hours, 5 million sign-ups in four hours, and 10 million registered users in seven hours. The next morning, the CEO of Meta noted that more than 30 million people had signed up to try the new app.

Until now, OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot had the distinction of being one of the fastest-growing consumer products by achieving 10 million daily users in 40 days and 100 million monthly users in nearly two months. Given that this is the first month for Threads, it has already crossed the milestone of 100 million monthly active users. But keeping users on the platform will be the real challenge.

While many folks are trying out Meta’s new text-focused social platform, there are some missing features. Notably, the app doesn’t have support for ActivityPub — the protocol used for posts on decentralized networks. While Meta said it is working on it, until the integration rolls out, the app won’t really be part of the Fediverse.

Apart from that, the app has a read-only web interface, no support for post search, direct messages, hashtags, and no “Following” feed. Because of Instagram’s rules, the app doesn’t allow nudity on its platform — something which another Twitter alternative Bluesky embraces.

Nevertheless, reaching 100 million users in such a short time is no small feat. So it looks like Threads is here to stay.