Meta's Threads has achieved a remarkable milestone, overtaking Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) in global mobile daily active users (DAUs), according to October 2025 data from Similarweb. Threads recorded 128.2 million mobile DAUs worldwide, edging out X's 124.7 million.
This narrow but symbolic victory — first glimpsed in September 2025 with Threads at 130.2 million versus X's 130.1 million in a single week — marks Threads as a serious contender in the text-based social media space.
The core driver behind this success has been a clear market demand: progressive and left-leaning users have long sought their own version of Twitter — a platform free from the controversies, algorithmic shifts toward right-wing content, and ownership changes that have defined X since Musk's 2022 acquisition.
Many liberals, moderates, and Europeans view Threads as a safer, more moderated "progressive Twitter," aligning better with their values on content policy, misinformation, and community standards. This exodus accelerated amid X's perceived drift toward extremism, rate-limiting frustrations, and reduced trust in moderation, creating an opening that Mark Zuckerberg expertly exploited.
By launching Threads in July 2023 at precisely this moment of discontent, Meta capitalized on the timing. More crucially, it solved the infamous "chicken-and-egg" problem that dooms most new social networks through seamless integration with Instagram's massive user base.
Users could sign up instantly, import their follows, and begin posting to an existing network — bypassing the barren startup phase that killed predecessors like Google+.
This corporate leverage of an established social graph stands in contrast to organic viral hits like TikTok, which grew as an entertainment feed rather than a true conversational network.
Third-party metrics underscore the shift. Threads saw 127% year-over-year growth to 115.1 million mobile DAUs by June 2025, while X experienced declines, including a 21.6% drop in U.S. usage.
Meta reports 400 million monthly active users for Threads as of August 2025, with engagement rates (6.25% median) outperforming X's (3.6%). In Europe, regulatory scrutiny on X under frameworks like the Digital Services Act has further boosted Threads' appeal among users prioritizing civility and fact-based discourse.
X retains advantages elsewhere: It dominates web traffic (141.7 million daily users vs. Threads' 7.6 million) and holds a U.S. mobile lead (21.4 million DAUs to Threads' 16.6 million), with longer session times reflecting its strength in real-time news and events.
Yet Threads' trajectory validates a long-standing market need. Progressives frustrated with X's direction finally have a viable home —one built on Meta's infrastructure but positioned as a cleaner, less polarizing alternative. Overcoming network effects, the tech industry's strongest moat, through perfect timing and ecosystem synergy, Threads isn't just growing; it's fulfilling a specific ideological demand that X has increasingly alienated. As 2026 unfolds, this "left-leaning Twitter" could solidify its gains, reshaping the social media divide.
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