It seems that the rise of Threads is starting to weigh on the minds of the marketing team at X, with the Elon Musk-owned platform adding a new jab at Threads within its App Store listing.
As shown in this screenshot, posted by @ceceruleanwonder on Threads, X now shows a “Better than Threads” headline on its promoted App Store listing, which is shown to App Store users if they search using the keyword Threads.
The regular X listing displays an alternative “Be the First to Know” headline in this same spot, but in order to lure potential Threads downloaders, X is also paying to target Threads searchers specifically.
This suggests that X is getting a little nervous about the threat of Threads. Musk himself initially played the app off as “Instagram minus pics,” which he said made no sense.
Musk also criticized Threads as being run by “smug hall monitors and snitches,” further downplaying its potential threat to X. Yet, at the same time, as reported by the BBC in 2023, Musk threatened to launch legal action against Meta for ripping off Twitter/X with the app.
That suggests that, even then, there was at least some level of concern regarding the real-time social alternative.
Based on the numbers, X should be at least a little concerned.
While Threads has risen to 400 million monthly active users in its three years of existence, X has remained stagnant, at about 600 million monthly users. X has also seen declines in usage in some regions, which means that Threads’ engagement numbers could now be very close to X, making it a real rival to the former bird app.
More recently, however, some data has suggested that Threads has stopped growing. According to Apptopia, Threads’ active user numbers have declined every month for the past eight months, which could suggest that the app has plateaued, and will struggle to get to the next stage of expansion.
Some have questioned the accuracy of these reports, so the full extent of these impacts is unclear. But based on Meta’s own reports, it does seem that Threads isn’t growing as fast as it once was.
Threads rose from 200 million users in August 2024 to 400 million in August 2025. If Threads had maintained that growth momentum, it would be closing in on 550 million users by now, and unquestionably rivalling X’s usage. However, Meta hasn’t provided any updates on growth since the August 2025 announcement.
Given that Meta would love to showcase its competitiveness with X, it seems likely that the company would be keen to share its latest numbers, if Threads had seen the same rate of growth. This could suggest that Threads hasn’t reached 450 million users yet, which is the next big milestone, and that could mean that Threads isn’t growing its audience.
But either way, clearly X has some concerns as Threads continues to establish its place as an alternative real-time discussion app.
