Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg set out three years ago to build a Twitter competitor with 1 billion users. He’s halfway there.

Threads, the short-form social network Zuckerberg launched in 2023 shortly after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now has 500 million monthly users, the company announced Tuesday. The app’s daily active users have also increased from a year ago, according to an interview with Connor Hayes, head of Threads, who declined to share specifics. That runs counter to external estimates, which projected that Threads’ user base was declining.