January 19, 2026 Meta’s Threads is now being used by more people each day on mobile devices than Elon Musk’s X, according to new data from Similarweb.
As of Jan. 7, Threads recorded 141.5 million daily active users across iOS and Android, compared with 125 million daily mobile users for X, Similarweb estimates. While X still commands a far larger audience on the web, Threads’ mobile app has quietly built momentum over months of steady growth.
The change does not appear to be directly tied to X’s recent controversies. Those include widespread reports that users were exploiting X’s built-in AI chatbot, Grok, to generate non-consensual nude images of women, sometimes involving minors. While those developments sparked scrutiny of X and drove short-term interest in alternatives like Bluesky, Similarweb’s data suggests Threads’ rise has been gradual rather than reactionary.
Instead, analysts point to Meta’s distribution advantage and product strategy. Threads has benefited from aggressive cross-promotion inside Instagram and Facebook, where existing users are routinely nudged to try the app. Meta has also focused on courting creators and shipping features at a rapid pace.
Over the past year, Threads has added interest-based communities, improved content filters, direct messages, long-form posts, disappearing content and, more recently, has been spotted testing in-app games. The result appears to be a shift in behavior that has more users opening Threads daily on their phones as a habitual social feed.
Meta’s own disclosures support that trajectory. In August 2025, the company said Threads had surpassed 400 million monthly active users. Two months later, Meta reported that daily active users had reached 150 million.
The longer-term trend has been building for some time. Last summer, Similarweb reported that Threads was rapidly closing the gap with X on mobile after logging 127.8% year-over-year growth by late June 2025. In the United States, X still maintains an edge, but that lead has narrowed sharply. According to Similarweb, X now has roughly half the daily U.S. mobile audience it had a year ago.
Where X continues to dominate is the web. The platform still attracts a relatively stable audience of about 150 million daily web visits, compared with Threads’ much smaller web footprint. As of Jan. 13, X was seeing roughly 145.4 million daily visits on the web. On the other hand, Threads logged about 8.5 million across Threads.com and Threads.net combined.
