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Threads Records Higher Daily Active Users on Mobile Than X in Early January
Meta’s Threads started 2026 ahead of Elon Musk’s X in worldwide mobile usage, according to market intelligence firm Similarweb. Similarweb’s estimates focus on daily active users, a measure of how many people use an app each day.
Similarweb publishes modeled estimates, so other analytics firms can report different totals. The latest figures show a clear gap in smartphones, even as the X platform has advantages in the United States and on the web.
Threads' Global Daily Active Users Surpass X on Mobile
Threads averaged about 143.2 million daily active users on mobile devices worldwide across the first 13 days of January. X averaged about 126.2 million over the same period, based on Similarweb estimates cited by Forbes. The gap reflects opposing trends: Similarweb estimates show X down 11.9% year over year in January, while Threads rose 37.8% over the same timeframe.
The shift was built on a crossover in late 2025. Similarweb’s data shows Threads moved ahead of X for the first time on September 5, with Threads at about 130 million daily mobile users and X at about 129 million. X also saw a short-lived jump on January 3 to about 133.1 million daily mobile users. Even with that spike, Threads kept a wider lead during the period.
X Maintains the Lead in US Mobile Users and Web Traffic
X still attracts slightly more mobile daily active users than Threads in the United States. Similarweb estimates show X averaging about 21.2 million daily active users on US mobile devices in the first 13 days of January, compared with about 19.5 million for Threads. The US gap has narrowed, as Similarweb estimates show X down 18.4% year over year and Threads up 41.8% in January.
X also holds a large lead on the open web, which matters for users who browse from desktops and laptops. Similarweb estimates show X’s website averaging about 149.4 million daily active users worldwide in the first two weeks of January.
Threads’ web presence remains much smaller, at about 8.9 million daily active web users worldwide in the same window. Those figures suggest Threads’ growth still depends heavily on app-based usage.
Instagram Integration Supports Threads' Growth as Rivals Struggle
Threads’ growth has tracked closely with Meta’s broader ecosystem. Meta’s leadership has highlighted that Threads benefits from Instagram sign-ins and cross-app discovery, which can reduce friction for new users.
Reports also cite Meta’s claim that Threads reached about 320 million active users, after strong sign-ups late in 2025.
Traffic trends also show how hard it is for smaller Twitter alternatives to scale. Similarweb estimates put Bluesky at about 3.6 million mobile daily active users worldwide in the first 13 days of January, down 44.4% year over year.
Advertisers often track daily active users because the metric relates directly to reachable audiences. The data points to a market where two platforms dominate mobile conversation at global scale.
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