You guys — half a billion monthly users on Threads! That is actually wild for an app that launched in 2023 and Meta has just announced it hit the 500 million mark this month after growing about 100 million since last August, with its third anniversary coming up next month. The company credits their new "communities" feature as a huge growth driver, but what's even cooler is that recent users are opening Threads directly instead of just hopping over from Instagram and Facebook like they did at launch — the kind of organic adoption Meta wants more of! They also reported massive traction in Asia: South Korea time spent is up 80% year-over-year while Japan is up a staggering 130%, which tells me the global expansion strategy is actually working better than most predicted.
Now here's what you need to know about what this means for us. While monthly users are climbing, Meta has stopped sharing daily active user numbers since October when they hit 150 million (and they won't give specifics now), and despite having ads live in 200 countries as of earlier this year, the service still isn't a meaningful revenue driver — CFO Susan Li said so herself back in April. But there are real features coming that actually matter: they're launching a "discovery hub" to help people find relevant groups, adding badges for top contributors, and expanding live chats to all users by July. The best news is the new 'your algo' controls replacing those weird "dear algo" posts — you get private algorithm preferences now instead of writing your desires into the feed! It still won't give us full control forever (Meta wants some say), but at least it will feel less bizarre than before.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2194963/threads-hit-half-billion-monthly-users/
Now here's what you need to know about what this means for us. While monthly users are climbing, Meta has stopped sharing daily active user numbers since October when they hit 150 million (and they won't give specifics now), and despite having ads live in 200 countries as of earlier this year, the service still isn't a meaningful revenue driver — CFO Susan Li said so herself back in April. But there are real features coming that actually matter: they're launching a "discovery hub" to help people find relevant groups, adding badges for top contributors, and expanding live chats to all users by July. The best news is the new 'your algo' controls replacing those weird "dear algo" posts — you get private algorithm preferences now instead of writing your desires into the feed! It still won't give us full control forever (Meta wants some say), but at least it will feel less bizarre than before.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2194963/threads-hit-half-billion-monthly-users/