Meta said today that its text-based social network Threads has less than 100 million monthly users three months after its launch.

"We like where it's at. You can easily hit a billion in the not too long term with that," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of Threads during the company's latest earnings call, Reuters reported.

"We're three months in now, and I'm very happy with the trajectory," Zuckerberg said on the call.

"I've thought for a long time that there should be a billion-person public conversations app that is a bit more positive. And I think that if we keep at this for a few more years, then I think we have a good chance of achieving our vision there."

This may not be a number showing engagement for something like Threads that's a social network, as an irregular user may also be somebody who opens a website, or app once.

Compared with that, X, the old Twitter, has around 550 million monthly active users, according to Elon Musk's September statement. This month, X's CEO Linda Yaccarino mentioned that the platform has 245 million daily active users.

Meta didn't provide numbers for daily active users for Threads, but its social network has nearly five times fewer daily active users compared to the number seen in July at launch.

Threads had hit 100 million signups in a week since its launch. But then, the engagement numbers began to drop after that. The company has shipped many of the sought-after features such as post search, web version, edit button, and easy account switching in the last few months. Meta is also working on features such as trending posts and separate account deletion from Instagram for Threads.

Notably, Threads is still not available to users in the EU, and Zuckerberg did not give a timeline for rollout in the earnings call.
The company has already experimented with other tricks, including displaying a carousel of suggested Threads posts from both Instagram and Facebook. It could also be working on an option to allow a user to share a Threads post directly into their Instagram story, as app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi suggests.

The biggest challenge for Threads will be to increase engagement, or as Zuckerberg phrased it, "build the community." Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who also oversees Threads, has said occasionally that Threads "is not going to amplify news" but the platform is not "anti-news." The service has barred searches for health-related terms "COVID" and "vaccines," but the company hopes to end the block soon.

Meta's approach in relation to Threads has always been that of a platform that wants to "empower creators." So, while all this news is appearing on Threads, it is actually pretty difficult to track that in real-time because not all reporters and publications have added there. But most important, reporters try to shy away from X since that became too hard for the publishers during moves such as de-sticking headlines from link preview.

Just a few days ago, news about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict headlined newspapers. Reporters also shared more updates on services such as Threads. Perhaps a bit more time is in order before Threads will have real-time, high-traffic events, like moments in pop culture and major sports events.