Users will be able to sign up on the new app with their Instagram username and password. Credit: Solen Feyissa on Unsplash.

Social media platform Instagram is planning to launch a new app to rival Twitter, reported Bloomberg, citing sources.

Currently, the Meta owned platform is testing a text-based app with celebrities and influencers, the sources said.

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The source added that select creators have secretly had access to the new app for months.

According to Lia Haberman, who teaches influencer marketing and social media marketing at UCLA, the app could be launched as early as June.

Haberman published an early screenshot of the app, which will be separate from Instagram but will allow users to connect accounts.

The screenshot does not give a separate name to the app, instead, it is just referred to as “Instagram’s new text-based app for conversations”, according to Haberman.

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She added that the decentralised app, code-named P92, Project 92 or Barcelona, is being developed using Instagram as a foundation, but will also be compatible with certain other apps such as Mastodon.

Requests for comments from Bloomberg were not immediately answered by Instagram.

“Historically, we know Meta likes to sample and recreate features from other apps and third-party tools based on what they anticipate being popular with their users,” Haberman was quoted by the publication as saying.

“Based on Meta’s track record borrowing from other platforms, it is much more likely they will get there first by consolidating all these experiences they are building.”