Instagram Threads hits 10m signups in seven hours

Instagram’s rival to Twitter, Threads, has attracted 10 million users within its first seven hours, Mark Zuckerberg has said, in a fresh challenge to Elon Musk.

The app, owned by Zuckerberg’s Meta, offers a text-based version of the photo-sharing app Instagram designed for “real-time updates and public conversations”.

“Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Zuckerberg wrote in his first post on the app, accompanied with a fire emoji.

He then posted a popular meme on Twitter of Spiderman facing off against another Spiderman – in a nod to his rivalry with Musk and between the two services.

The app is now available to download from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store in over 100 countries, including the UK, US, Australia, Canada Japan, and Nigeria.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, has been building Threads for several months and has sought to recruit celebrity users who have abandoned Twitter in protest at Musk’s often erratic leadership.

Instagram, which developed the new app, also hopes its existing large user base will provide an advantage against Twitter.

Downloading Threads
Your first step in joining the Instagram thread is to download the application. Despite using the Instagram account to sign up, a separate download is necessary to access the Instagram Threads. The app is available both on IOS and Android platforms, and the procedure of each remains largely the same.