Elon Musk’s social network still reigns supreme on the internet
Threads surpasses X in daily mobile users worldwide.
Threads is winning the mobile war against X. New data from Similarweb (via TechCrunch) indicates that Meta’s short-form social network is winning over X when it comes to daily active users on iOS and Android.
Similarweb’s data shows that 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 devices.
The bigger picture still favors X in one key area: the web. While Threads leads on mobile, X continues to dominate desktop traffic. X is estimated to attract tens of millions of visits via web browsers per day, compared to Threads’ much smaller web audience. When you combine the web and mobile numbers, X still looks bigger overall, so it’s not a complete takeover.
Threads became popular thanks to its core platform, Meta, which pushed users from Facebook and Instagram to Threads.
The daily active user trend is still significant, especially compared to X, which is steadily losing users. The list of reasons why people would want to leave X is long and includes issues such as Grok-generated deepfakes, X owner Elon Musk’s political views, handling of harmful content, and privacy concerns.
While none of these factors alone explain this change, together they have created uncertainty that some believe has driven casual mobile users to seek alternatives.
Geography adds another dimension. X is still stronger in the United States on mobile, but Threads has seen faster global growth, especially in markets where Instagram already has a strong presence.
On the web, however, it’s a very different picture. Threads is growing there as well, but it only had 8.5 million daily web visits in January, compared to X’s 145.4 million daily web visits.
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