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Meta service Threads (symbolic image): The app has not yet been officially released in Germany

Photo: Murat Kocabas / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images

The short message service Threads, which was launched as an alternative to Twitter, has already won over 100 million users in just five days. As the online data service Quiver Quantitative announced, the offer from Meta cracked this mark on Monday morning. Other websites, which are based on the number of downloads of the app, saw the threshold crossed even earlier.

Threads has been available in the Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries since Thursday night, but not yet in Germany and other European countries. The reason for this is apparently regulatory issues. (You can read here about the detours you can use to get the app on your mobile phone if you are interested.)

Threads belongs to Facebook's parent company Meta and is officially an offshoot of Meta's subsidiary Instagram. This makes it easier for the app to grow, because if you already have an Instagram account, you can log in directly to Threads with the appropriate access data and transfer your contacts. Instagram has over two billion users.

More speed than ChatGPT, TikTok, and Instagram

Threads has now also trumped a network record recently set by the chatbot ChatGPT. This AI-based service took two months to reach 100 million users worldwide. By comparison, the video app TikTok took nine months to reach the 100 million mark, and Instagram itself took two and a half years to reach this number of users after its launch in 2010.

It remains to be seen how sustainable the growth of threads is and how many users just wanted to try out the app once.

It is estimated that the number of active Twitter users is currently well over 300 million users. Since the takeover of the service by billionaire Elon Musk and the dismissal of a large part of the workforce, the short message service, which was launched in 2006, has been going haywire, which has scared off some advertisers. Musk's company is already threatening Meta with a lawsuit over threads, accusing the U.S. company of embezzling "trade secrets and other intellectual property" by recruiting former Twitter employees. Meta rejects this.

mbö/AFP