• by Colin Kirkland , December 14, 2023

Just one day after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company’s X competitor app Threads may be joining the “fediverse,” the social messaging platform officially launched in the EU, allowing access to hundreds of millions of potential new users.

While Threads has been available in over 100 countries since its launch in July, the app did not launch in Europe until now due to evolving privacy regulations put forth by the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a bill that aims to protect and prevent tech giants from engaging in monopolistic behavior.

Meta has had its share of recent regulatory issues. In January, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined the company over $400 million for its use of user data on Facebook and Instagram.

That was followed in May by an unparalleled $1.3 billion penalty for Meta's transferring of EU users’ data to the U.S.

But earlier this month, Meta said it had figured out a way to comply with the EU's budding regulations.

The company is resolving the EU’s concerns about the relationship between Instagram and Threads by providing EU users with the choice to browse Threads without a profile. However, posting content or engaging with other users’ content will still require an Instagram account.

According to Meta's EU transparency report with Instagram, there are around 260 million average monthly active users on Instagram in the region.
The tech giant is likely hoping many of them will now use their Instagram profiles to connect to Threads, which currently has over 100 million monthly users across the globe.

It will be interesting to see how many new Threads users Meta will add in the EU.

To surpass user numbers for X, the app formerly known as Twitter, Threads would need to add around 300 million more monthly active users.

Despite a slew of new features, the possibility of interoperability, a growing user base and the ongoing downfall of X, it will take time for Threads to truly compete with X.

Sources predict the highest number of monthly active EU users that Threads will attract will top out around 40 million over the next year.