Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Platforms, announced on Monday that their Twitter rival, Threads, achieved over 100 million sign-ups within just five days of its launch.

This remarkable growth has surpassed the previous record set by ChatGPT, establishing Threads as the fastest-growing online platform to reach this milestone.

Since its release last Wednesday, Threads has been experiencing unprecedented user growth, attracting notable figures such as celebrities, politicians, and influential individuals.

Analysts consider Threads as a significant contender and the first credible threat to Elon Musk's microblogging app.

Mark Zuckerberg, in a post on Threads, attributed the achievement of reaching 100 million sign-ups within five days to the strong organic demand for the app. He also mentioned that they have yet to fully activate promotional efforts to drive growth.

This rapid ascent to 100 million users surpassed the previous record set by ChatGPT, a consumer application owned by OpenAI, which achieved remarkable growth within about two months after its launch, according to a UBS study.

As for Twitter, it had around 240 million monetizable daily active users as of July last year, based on the company's previous public disclosure before Elon Musk's takeover. However, data from web analytics companies suggests a decline in usage since then.

According to Similarweb, Twitter experienced an 11% decrease in web traffic compared to the previous year in the days following the launch of Threads. This decline is higher than the 4% year-over-year decrease observed in June. Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, also shared a graph on Twitter illustrating a similar trend and stated that Twitter's traffic was declining significantly.

In response to these reports, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted that the platform had its "largest usage day" since February last week, although she did not provide specific details.

Yaccarino emphasized that Twitter remains a unique and irreplaceable platform.

Despite several emerging platforms attempting to challenge Twitter's dominance, including Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, and T2, they are still relatively small in terms of user base.

Mastodon, one of the notable competitors, currently has approximately 7.7 million users in total.

However, the active user count provided by the platform indicates that less than 2 million users actively engage with the service.

Bluesky, a social media platform supported by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has garnered 265,000 users since its launch in February. It also maintains a waitlist of approximately 2 million potential users.

Meanwhile, conservative-oriented platforms such as GETTR and Truth Social, founded by former US President Donald Trump, have estimated monthly user counts of 144,000 and 607,000, respectively.

Elon Musk has responded to the launch of Meta Platforms' Threads app by mocking it and threatening to sue Meta, alleging the use of trade secrets and confidential information. Legal experts suggest proving such claims could be challenging.

Threads, similar to other Twitter rivals, resembles the popular microblogging platform. It allows posts of up to 500 characters, supports links, photos, and videos, but currently lacks direct messaging and a desktop version. The absence of hashtags and keyword search functions limits its appeal to advertisers and real-time event tracking.

Despite these limitations, analysts believe that the recent controversies and restrictions on Twitter usage could aid Threads in attracting users dissatisfied with the current platform.

Currently ad-free, Meta Platforms plans to consider monetization strategies once it reaches a user base of 1 billion.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri clarified that Meta is not attempting to replace Twitter, and Threads aims to focus on lighter topics like sports, music, fashion, and design.

However, political and hard news content is inevitable on the platform, challenging its positioning as a "friendly" option for online public discourse.

Meta's shares closed with a 1.2% increase on Monday and have gained over 140% year-to-date.