Threads Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Alex Rivera | Last updated: July 13, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Meta’s Threads platform reached 500 million monthly active users as of June 16, 2026, confirmed in an official Meta Newsroom announcement. By January 2026, Threads had already surpassed X (formerly Twitter) in mobile daily active users for the first time — 141.5 million versus X’s 125 million, according to Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch. Evercore ISI projects Threads will generate $11.3 billion in revenue for Meta by end of 2026.
Quick Answer: Key Threads Numbers in 2026
Threads has 500 million monthly active users (Meta, June 2026), 150 million daily active users (Meta, October 2025), and a DAU/MAU ratio of 30% based on those two official figures. The platform generates a median engagement rate of 6.25% across posts, compared to 3.6% for X, per Buffer’s analysis of 10.2 million posts. Revenue for 2025 is estimated at $8 billion by Evercore ISI, rising to a projected $11.3 billion in 2026.
Key Findings
- Threads reached 500 million monthly active users as of June 16, 2026, confirmed directly by Meta’s official newsroom — becoming one of the five largest social platforms globally in under three years.
- Threads surpassed X in mobile daily active users for the first time on January 7, 2026, with 141.5 million Threads mobile DAUs versus X’s 125 million, per Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch.
- Axis Intelligence Research calculates a Threads Engagement Efficiency Ratio (TEER™) of 1.74 — the platform’s median engagement rate (6.25%) divided by its average monthly session time (34 minutes per month on Android), compared to X’s ratio of 0.11 — indicating Threads delivers roughly 16× more engagement per minute of user time than X.
- Evercore ISI projects Threads will contribute $11.3 billion to Meta’s revenue in 2026, up from an estimated $8 billion in 2025 — representing an 81.8% year-over-year increase and the fastest ad-revenue ramp-up among Meta’s platforms since Instagram.
- India leads Threads’ global install base at 32% of total downloads, followed by Brazil at 22% and the United States at 16%, according to Sprout Social’s 2026 data — a geographic spread that distinguishes Threads from X’s more U.S.-centric heritage.
How Many People Use Threads?
Monthly Active Users: From Zero to 500 Million in 36 Months
Meta’s official milestone announcement on June 16, 2026, confirmed Threads had reached 500 million monthly active users — a figure the company attributed directly to the growth of its Communities feature. The trajectory to that number was steep and largely unbroken after the 2023 launch hangover.
The MAU growth timeline, built from official Meta statements and third-party verification:
| Period | MAU | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Launch day (July 5, 2023) | 2M (2-hour mark) | Meta / Mark Zuckerberg post |
| July 10, 2023 (day 5) | 100M | Meta official |
| Q4 2023 | 130M | Meta (stabilized from launch surge) |
| Q1 2024 | 150M | Meta earnings commentary |
| Q3 2024 | 200M | Meta official |
| Q4 2024 | 275M | Meta (confirmed Nov 2024) |
| Q1 2025 | 320M | Meta Q1 2025 earnings call |
| Q2 2025 | 350M | Meta commentary |
| August 2025 | 400M | Meta official announcement |
| Q2 2026 (June 16, 2026) | 500M | Meta Newsroom (primary) |
Source: Meta Newsroom (about.fb.com), August 2025 and June 2026 announcements.
That doubling — from 200M to 400M — happened in approximately 327 days, between September 2024 and August 2025. The jump from 400M to 500M took about 10 months. The growth pace, while slower than the 2024 sprint, reflects a platform moving from novelty to habit.
Daily Active Users and the Stickiness Question
Meta reported 150 million daily active users in October 2025, per TechCrunch. Using that DAU figure against the 500 million MAU milestone yields a DAU/MAU ratio of 30% — a meaningful stickiness signal for a text-based platform competing in an attention economy dominated by short-form video.
For comparison, Sprout Social noted the ratio at 37.5% based on the 400M MAU / 150M DAU figures; Axis Intelligence Research uses the most current official MAU (500M) against the last officially stated DAU (150M), yielding the 30% figure as the more conservative and defensible reading.
On mobile specifically, Similarweb data as of January 7, 2026, put Threads at 141.5 million daily active mobile users versus X’s 125 million — the first documented crossover. TechCrunch, which reported the Similarweb figures, noted that the gap had been narrowing for months and reflected organic growth rather than a reaction to specific X platform controversies.
Threads vs. X: Where Each Platform Actually Leads
The mobile/web split is the stat that most coverage buries in a footnote. It matters more than MAU bragging rights.
| Metric | Threads | X | Source / Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active users | 500M | ~557M | Meta (Jun 2026) / DataReportal |
| Daily active users (mobile) | 141.5M | 125M | Similarweb via TechCrunch, Jan 7, 2026 |
| Daily web visits | ~8.5M | ~145.4M | Similarweb via TechCrunch, Jan 13, 2026 |
| Median engagement rate | 6.25% | 3.6% | Buffer (10.2M posts analyzed, 2024) |
| Avg. monthly time on Android | 34 min | 319 min (5hr 19min) | Similarweb / multiple sources |
| MAU YoY growth (to mid-2025) | +127.8% (DAU) | −15.2% (DAU) | Similarweb via TechCrunch, Jun 2025 |
Source: Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch (January 18, 2026); Buffer engagement analysis (buffer.com/resources/threads-vs-twitter/).
Alex Rivera’s read: Threads won the mobile DAU race in a specific, bounded way. It serves shorter, more frequent visits — 20 sessions per month averaging 4–5 minutes each — versus X’s deeper, longer desktop sessions from journalists, traders, and political observers. Neither metric is more “real.” They describe different behaviors. A brand asking “should I be on Threads?” needs to weigh which behavior matches its audience more than it needs to pick a winner.
The engagement rate gap is the more durable advantage. Buffer’s analysis of 10.2 million posts found Threads’ 6.25% median versus X’s 3.6% — a 73.6% relative difference. That’s algorithm design, not audience size. Threads rewards replies and conversational depth; X rewards broadcast virality. Content creators who post the same thing to both platforms consistently report higher interaction on Threads for the same reach, which is worth more than a monthly user count.
Threads Audience Demographics: Who Is Actually There?
Age Distribution
Multiple sources, drawing from Similarweb and SimilarWeb-sourced Statista data, put the 25–34 cohort as the largest single age segment — representing approximately 28.75% of the global user base as of early 2026. The 18–24 group follows at roughly 20.36%, and the 35–44 cohort at around 19.15%.
| Age group | Share of Threads users |
|---|---|
| 18–24 | ~20.4% |
| 25–34 | ~28.8% |
| 35–44 | ~19.2% |
| 45–54 | ~13.9% |
| 55–64 | ~10.1% |
| 65+ | ~6.0% |
Source: SimilarWeb demographic data (February 2025) via Statista; resourcera.com Threads Users By Country 2026.
One pattern worth noting: the 45+ cohort collectively represents roughly 30% of users. That’s larger than TikTok’s or Instagram’s equivalent slice — a sign that Threads’ text-first format skews older than Meta’s other properties.
Gender
The platform leans male. Consistent across multiple sources: approximately 57–58% male, 42–43% female (Sprout Social citing Statista, 2026; resourcera.com citing multiple trackers). This closely mirrors X’s gender distribution and may reflect an inherent demographic of text-based microblogging rather than anything platform-specific. Instagram, by contrast, has a near-even split.
Geographic Footprint
Threads is available in more than 100 countries and supports 31 languages. By web traffic share (Semrush data, 2026):
| Country | Share of Threads traffic |
|---|---|
| Taiwan | 21.08% |
| United States | 14.85% |
| India | 7.33% |
| Japan | 7.03% |
| Brazil | 4.99% |
Source: Semrush, via resourcera.com (Threads Users By Country, 2026).
Taiwan’s 21% traffic share is the standout, and it has no obvious single explanation — the region has historically been an early adopter of new microblogging surfaces, and local-language community features announced in June 2026 (native-language tags in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea) suggest Meta is leaning into these markets deliberately.
By download share, India leads at 32%, Brazil at 22%, and the United States at 16% (Sprout Social, 2026; consistent with Business of Apps data). The download hierarchy and the web-traffic hierarchy are different because India and Brazil skew almost entirely mobile, while Taiwan and the U.S. show higher desktop usage.
U.S.-specific: approximately 33.9 million MAUs (resourcera.com, January 2026) and 16.6 million U.S. daily active users (same source). X still leads Threads in U.S. daily mobile users as of April 2026 — 21.3 million versus 18.3 million — per Forbes citing Similarweb.
Threads App Growth: The Launch Record and What Followed
The Fastest Launch in Consumer App History
On July 5, 2023, Threads launched to an Instagram-powered pipeline of potential users who could sign up with an existing Instagram account. The early numbers were unprecedented:
- 1 million users within 1 hour of launch (Meta / Mark Zuckerberg)
- 10 million users within 7 hours (Meta)
- 30 million users within 24 hours (Meta)
- 100 million users within 5 days (Meta official) — breaking the previous record held by ChatGPT (2 months)
The caveat: most of that was sign-ups, not daily active users. By July 14, 2023 — nine days after launch — daily active users on Android had dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million. By late July 2023, Android DAUs were below 10 million. That pattern — explosive sign-up followed by sharp retention drop — is the single most important context for reading early Threads data.
The retention recovery is what matters more. From that 10M DAU floor in late 2023, Threads built back to 115.1 million mobile DAUs by June 2025 (Similarweb, via TechCrunch), then 141.5 million by January 2026, then Meta’s self-reported 150 million in October 2025. The trajectory is real; it just took 18 months to become durable.
Downloads Since Launch
Total cumulative downloads exceeded 500 million on the Google Play Store alone as of early 2026 (Backlinko, May 2026). Statista reported 828 million total worldwide app downloads by December 2025, combining iOS and Android.
Monthly download peaks, indexed from available data:
| Month | Downloads | Note |
|---|---|---|
| July 2023 | 73.1M | Launch month; record pace |
| December 2023 | ~34M | EU launch (December 14, 2023) |
| March 2024 | 28.0M | |
| December 2025 | 19M | Stable post-hype pace |
Source: Business of Apps, Statista, Backlinko (retrieved July 2026).
Threads Engagement: Sessions, Time, and What the Algorithm Rewards
The session data is Threads’ most debated metric — and it needs to be read carefully. The platform’s average session on Android is approximately 34 minutes per month total (Statista / Similarweb, August 2024 baseline, corroborated by multiple 2026 sources). Users open the app roughly 20 times per month, yielding sessions averaging about 4–5 minutes each.
For contrast: X Android users log approximately 5 hours 19 minutes per month total — about 9× more time. That gap reflects the apps’ different designs. X is built around following breaking news and extended commentary threads; Threads is built around quick conversational check-ins.
The engagement rate metric points in the opposite direction. Buffer’s analysis of 10.2 million posts published to both platforms in 2024 found:
- Threads median engagement rate: 6.25%
- X median engagement rate: 3.6%
The methodology used the median (not mean) to control for viral outliers, and defined engagement as total interactions divided by reach. The difference — 73.6% higher for Threads — reflects the algorithm’s heavy weighting of replies and comment depth over passive likes.
The Axis Intelligence Research Threads Engagement Efficiency Ratio (TEER™)
Standard coverage compares engagement rate and session time as separate metrics. Axis Intelligence Research combines them into a single cross-platform signal:
TEER™ = Platform median engagement rate ÷ Average monthly session time (minutes)
This ratio answers a question advertisers and creators actually face: how much engagement does each platform produce relative to the attention users give it?
Threads TEER™ (as of Q2 2026): 6.25 ÷ 34 = 0.184 X TEER™ (as of Q2 2026): 3.6 ÷ 319 = 0.011
Axis Intelligence Research estimates Threads delivers a TEER™ of 0.184, versus 0.011 for X — a ratio of approximately 16.7×.
Inputs: Threads median engagement rate from Buffer’s 10.2M-post analysis (buffer.com/resources/threads-vs-twitter/); Threads monthly Android session time from Similarweb via Statista; X median engagement rate from same Buffer analysis; X monthly Android session time from Similarweb. All figures retrieved July 2026.
Limitations: Engagement rate reflects interactions ÷ reach, which differs between platforms. Session time is Android-only from Similarweb, which does not capture iOS or web equally. TEER™ should be interpreted directionally, not as a precise multiplier.
The practical interpretation: on Threads, a user spending 34 minutes a month interacts proportionally far more than an X user spending 319 minutes. The implication for marketers is that lower absolute time-on-platform does not mean lower value per impression — a distinction that per-month-session comparisons alone obscure.
Threads Revenue: From $0 to a Projected $11.3 Billion
Meta did not immediately monetize Threads at launch. Advertising testing in the U.S. and Japan began in early 2025, and Meta expanded global ad availability in April 2025. By Q4 2025, Meta’s own earnings commentary confirmed that algorithm optimizations had driven a 20% lift in time spent on Threads — a prerequisite metric for advertising scale.
Revenue figures and projections (Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney, sourced from Bloomberg / Business of Apps):
| Year | Estimated / Projected Revenue | YoY Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | ~$0.9B | — (launch year) |
| 2024 | ~$4.4B | +389% |
| 2025 | ~$8.0B | +81.8% |
| 2026 (projected) | ~$11.3B | +41.3% |
Source: Evercore ISI analyst estimates, Mark Mahaney (Bloomberg, July 2023; confirmed and updated by Business of Apps, June 2026). These are analyst projections, not Meta-reported figures. Meta does not separately disclose Threads revenue.
The $11.3B projection, if realized, would represent approximately 5% of Meta’s total 2025 reported revenue ($201 billion) generated by a platform less than four years old. For reference, Instagram’s first three years of advertising revenue grew considerably more slowly from a comparable launch base.
Early CPM benchmarks are estimated at $5–$10 (Business of Apps / multiple sources), with RPM at $10–$20. Those ranges sit at the lower end of Meta’s advertising ecosystem, reflecting early-stage inventory and the platform’s still-developing ad targeting layer.
Threads’ Most-Followed Accounts
The top followed accounts reflect Threads’ Instagram heritage — football, pop culture, and celebrity overlap heavily between the two platforms.
| Rank | Account | Followers (2026 est.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Neymar Jr. | ~24.9M |
| 2 | Selena Gomez | ~20.7M |
| 3 | Kylie Jenner | ~19.0M |
| 4 | Kim Kardashian | ~17.0M |
| 5 | Shakira | ~14.9M |
Source: Backlinko (May 2026); Sprout Social (2026). Note: follower counts on Threads shift quickly and these represent May–June 2026 estimates.
Feature Timeline: What Actually Drove the Rebound
The recovery from the 2023 DAU collapse was not a single event — it tracks closely with the platform’s feature cadence:
| Date | Feature | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| July 2023 | Launch (100 countries, 31 languages) | Instagram social graph import |
| December 2023 | EU launch | +34M downloads month |
| 2024 | Public API (free, unlike X’s paid tiers) | Developer ecosystem |
| January 2025 | Ads launched (U.S. and Japan test) | First revenue pathway |
| April 2025 | Global ad expansion | Monetization scale |
| July 2025 | Direct messaging launched | Most-requested missing feature |
| August 2025 | Long-form text testing | Content format expansion |
| October 2025 | Communities feature launch | Drove 500M milestone per Meta |
| February 2026 | “Dear Algo” control launched | User algorithm transparency |
| June 2026 | “Your Algo,” communities out of beta | 500M MAU milestone; local community tags (Taiwan, Japan, Korea) |
Source: Meta Newsroom (about.fb.com) and TechCrunch (techcrunch.com).
The direct messaging launch in July 2025 is worth singling out. It closed the most-cited gap versus X — the ability to have private conversations. Meta launching DMs on Threads as a deliberate choice (rather than routing through Instagram DMs) signaled the platform’s intent to function as a standalone social network, not just an Instagram overflow valve.
Threads vs. Bluesky: The Third Player
No statistics article on Threads in 2026 can ignore Bluesky, which reported approximately 35–40 million monthly active users as of early 2026, per app store data. Bluesky’s decentralized AT Protocol architecture appeals to users skeptical of Meta’s data practices; its growth spikes correlate with X controversies. But it remains an order of magnitude smaller than Threads, with a user base that skews toward tech, journalism, and academia rather than mass-market consumers.
For Threads, Bluesky is a proof point — it shows that an appetite for non-X text social exists beyond what Meta can serve from its own ecosystem — but not yet a direct competitive threat to user growth.
Methodology
Data Collection
Axis Intelligence Research assembled this dataset from the following primary and verified secondary sources, each fetched during the production session (July 2026):
- Meta Newsroom (about.fb.com): Official MAU milestone announcements (August 2025 — 400M; June 16, 2026 — 500M). Primary source, authoritative for MAU figures.
- TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/01/18/): Reporting on Similarweb mobile DAU data as of January 7, 2026 (Threads: 141.5M vs. X: 125M). Similarweb data methodology note: estimates extrapolated from app analytics partnerships; not first-party Meta data.
- Evercore ISI (Mark Mahaney): Revenue projections for Threads ($8B in 2025, $11.3B in 2026). Sourced via Bloomberg (July 2023 original) and Business of Apps (June 2026 update). These are analyst estimates, not Meta-audited figures.
- Buffer (buffer.com/resources/threads-vs-twitter/): Engagement rate analysis of 10.2 million posts across Threads and X in 2024. Methodology disclosed: median engagement rate, defined as total interactions ÷ reach. A content mix biased toward Buffer’s user base (brands and creators) may not fully represent organic personal accounts.
- Sprout Social (sproutsocial.com/insights/threads-statistics/): Q2 2025 Consumer Pulse Survey demographic data (Gen Z / Millennial 17% each adoption rate).
- Statista (via SimilarWeb): Age distribution (February 2025 SimilarWeb data); monthly session time on Android.
- Meta Q4 2025 earnings commentary (about.fb.com/news/2026/01/2026-ai-drives-performance/): Q4 2025 optimization driving 20% lift in Threads time spent. Primary company filing.
- Semrush (via resourcera.com): Web traffic by country (2026).
- Forbes (forbes.com, June 16, 2026): Forbes reporting on Similarweb April 2026 data (Threads: 135.7M avg. DAU vs. X: 126.9M avg. DAU; U.S. Threads: 18.3M vs. X: 21.3M).
TEER™ Formula (Threads Engagement Efficiency Ratio)
TEER™ = Platform median engagement rate (%) ÷ Average monthly session time (minutes, Android)
- Threads: 6.25 ÷ 34 = 0.184
- X: 3.6 ÷ 319 = 0.011
- Ratio: 0.184 ÷ 0.011 = 16.7
This metric was developed by Axis Intelligence Research and first published in this article. It does not appear in this combined form in any cited source. All inputs are sourced independently.
Limitations
Monthly session time (34 minutes) is an Android-specific Similarweb estimate. iOS and web sessions are not captured in this figure. Engagement rate figures compare Threads and X but methodologies differ between platforms (different content types, different reach calculation). Analyst revenue projections (Evercore ISI) are not audited figures. DAU figures from Similarweb are modeled estimates, not Meta-certified data.
About This Dataset
Dataset title: Threads Statistics 2026 — Users, Growth, Engagement, and Revenue Benchmarks Coverage: July 2023 (launch) through June 2026 (most recent data point: Meta’s 500M MAU announcement) Creator / Publisher: Axis Intelligence Research License: CC BY 4.0 — free to share and adapt with attribution: “Axis Intelligence Research, Threads Statistics 2026, axis-intelligence.com”
Cite This Article
APA: Axis Intelligence Research & Rivera, A. (2026, July 13). Threads statistics 2026: Users, growth & platform benchmarks. Axis Intelligence Research. https://axis-intelligence.com/threads-statistics/
MLA: Rivera, Alex, and Axis Intelligence Research. “Threads Statistics 2026: Users, Growth & Platform Benchmarks.” Axis Intelligence Research, 13 July 2026, axis-intelligence.com/threads-statistics/.
Chicago: Rivera, Alex, and Axis Intelligence Research. “Threads Statistics 2026: Users, Growth & Platform Benchmarks.” Axis Intelligence Research. July 13, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/threads-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people use Threads in 2026?
Threads reached 500 million monthly active users as of June 16, 2026, per Meta’s official newsroom announcement. The platform also reported 150 million daily active users in October 2025, yielding a DAU/MAU ratio of approximately 30%.
Did Threads surpass X (Twitter) in users?
On mobile daily active users, yes. Similarweb data reported by TechCrunch showed Threads at 141.5 million mobile DAUs versus X’s 125 million as of January 7, 2026. On total monthly active users and desktop/web traffic, X still leads: X claims approximately 557 million MAUs, and its web traffic (145.4 million daily visits) dwarfs Threads’ 8.5 million daily web visits.
What is Threads’ engagement rate in 2026?
Buffer’s analysis of 10.2 million posts found a median engagement rate of 6.25% on Threads — 73.6% higher than X’s 3.6% median. Engagement rate is defined as total interactions (likes, replies, reposts) divided by reach.
How much revenue does Threads generate?
Meta does not separately disclose Threads revenue. Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney projects Threads contributed approximately $8 billion to Meta’s revenue in 2025 and forecasts $11.3 billion in 2026. These are analyst estimates, not audited figures.
Which country has the most Threads users?
By total registered users and download volume, India leads at approximately 32% of all global installs, followed by Brazil (22%) and the United States (16%), per Sprout Social 2026. By web traffic share, Taiwan leads at 21.08%, followed by the U.S. at 14.85% (Semrush 2026).
How fast did Threads grow?
Threads set the record for fastest consumer app to reach 100 million users — achieving it in 5 days, beating ChatGPT’s previous record of approximately 2 months. Monthly active users doubled from 200 million to 400 million in approximately 327 days (September 2024 to August 2025).
What is Threads’ DAU/MAU ratio?
Using Meta’s 500 million MAU (June 2026) and 150 million DAU (October 2025), Axis Intelligence Research calculates a DAU/MAU ratio of approximately 30%. Sprout Social calculated 37.5% against the earlier 400M MAU / 150M DAU pair. A ratio in the 25–40% range is generally considered healthy for a social platform.
How does Threads differ from X on mobile?
Threads is effectively a mobile-only platform: users open it ~20 times per month for ~4–5 minute sessions, almost entirely via app. X maintains significant desktop usage — approximately 145 million daily web visits versus Threads’ 8.5 million. Users who use X for real-time news, financial data, and professional networking primarily do so on desktop or web.
When did Threads launch ads?
Threads began limited advertising testing in the United States and Japan in January 2025, then expanded to all eligible global advertisers in April 2025. Ads are managed through Meta’s existing Ads Manager — brands already running Instagram or Facebook campaigns can extend targeting to Threads without a separate setup.
What is the TEER™ metric?
The Threads Engagement Efficiency Ratio (TEER™) is an original metric developed by Axis Intelligence Research. It divides a platform’s median engagement rate by its average monthly session time (in minutes, Android), producing a cross-platform signal of engagement generated per unit of user attention. Threads’ TEER™ of 0.184 compares to X’s 0.011, a 16.7× difference, indicating Threads delivers disproportionately high engagement relative to the time users spend on the platform.