New data shows that Topics is outperforming X in mobile phone users daily

A report from market intelligence firm Sameweb indicates that Meta’s Threads now sees more daily use than Elon Musk’s X on mobile devices. While X still dominates Threads on the web, the Threads mobile app for iOS and Android has continued to see an increase in daily active users over the past few months.

Sameweb data shows Threads had 141.5 million daily active users on iOS and Android as of January 7, 2026, after months of growth, while X has 125 million daily active users on mobile.

This appears to be the result of long-term trends, rather than a reaction to the recent controversies over X, in which users were caught using the platform’s integrated AI, Grok, to create nude images without the consent of women, sometimes including minors. Concern over deep fake images has prompted the California Attorney General to open an investigation into Grok’s case, following similar investigations conducted by other regions, such as the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, Brazil and many others.

The drama over X has also led to social networking startup Bluesky seeing an increase in app installs in recent days.

Alternatively, Threads’ boost into everyday mobile use may be driven by other factors, including cross-promotion from Meta’s larger social media apps like Facebook and Instagram (where Threads is regularly advertised to existing users), its focus on creators, and the rapid rollout of new features. Over the past year, Threads has added features like interest-based communities, better filters, direct messaging, longer texts, disappearing posts, and was recently spotted testing games.

Taken together, the daily increases in active users suggest that more people are using mobile threads as a more regular habit.

According to Meta’s official numbers, the tech giant said in August 2025 that Threads had reached more than 400 million monthly active users. The company later reported in October last year that Threads had 150 million daily active users.

Growth trends have continued for several months. SimilarWeb reported last summer that Threads was closing the gap with X on mobile after seeing 127.8% year-over-year growth as of late June 2025.

Relatedly, Sameweb notes that X is still ahead of Threads in the US, but the gap is narrowing. A year ago, X had twice as many daily active users in the US as it does now.

Additionally, Threads has little traction on the web while X maintains a fairly steady web audience with about 150 million web visits per day, according to Sameweb data. As of earlier this week (January 13), X was seeing 145.4 million daily web visits, while Threads saw 8.5 million daily web visits across Threads.com and Threads.net combined.