DMs may come to Threads soon as Meta’s app now has one-fifth of Twitter’s user base

Feature may come much sooner than expected, report suggests

Direct messaging is reportedly coming to Threads soon as the Twitter rival app’s user base grows to nearly one-tenth of the Elon Musk-owned platform.

A leaked internal report from Meta suggests DMs will be “coming soon” to Instagram’s Threads, along with other exciting features, Business Insider reported.

Initially, Instagram’s chief Adam Mosseri had said DMs are not in Threads’ immediate roadmap, but the new leaked memo suggests the Twitter competitor could offer the messaging feature much sooner than expected.

This expected update to the platform comes as Threads now has over 100 million user sign ups just within days of its arrival, boasting a weekly active user base that is nearly one-fifth of competitor Twitter’s.

Within just its first week of launch, Threads racked up about 93 million active users globally and on 10 July, Meta announced that the app had reached 100 million signups.

The app now has more than 150 million downloads, reaching this milestone “5.5 times more quickly than the second-fastest app to do so”, according to the app intelligence firm data.ai.

Niantic’s Pokémon GO held the top spot as the most rapidly downloaded app for years since its debut in July 2016.

Among Threads’ userbase, data.ai’s report suggested India accounts for nearly a third of the app’s downloads, followed by Brazil, with 22 per cent of overall Threads’ installs, and the US representing about 16 per cent of the total.

Now, with the anticipated inclusion of a direct messaging feature, people on Threads can stay longer and chat privately without having to leave the app.

Other features such as improved search, trends and topics are also reportedly coming soon, along with a feed in chronological order. It is unclear when these new updates will come.

The new changes could put more pressure on Twitter and its owner Elon Musk, who said the platform continues to lose cash as advertising has dropped by half.

“We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Mr Musk tweeted on Saturday.

“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he said.