Instagram growing faster than ever, hits 700 million users

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Over 100 million users have joined since December.
Over 100 million users have joined since December.
Photo: Instagram

Sharing photos of our food and skinny lattes still hasn’t gotten boring. Instagram today revealed that it is picking up new users faster than ever as it surpasses the 700 million users milestone.

It took Instagram over four years to pick up 300 million users, but in the last two years, it has more than doubled that figure to 700 million. Over 100 million of those users have joined since December 2016, with Instagram enjoying its fastest period of growth since it launched in October 2010.

Much of that success can be attributed to the platform’s ability to keep up and compete with its rivals.

Instagram has been keen to ensure it isn’t outdone by the likes of Snapchat with the introduction of similar features, such as Instagram Stories, which is now more popular than Snap’s with 200 million users every day (compared to around 158 million on Snapchat).

In recent months, Instagram has also added stickers, the ability to share multiple photos as a collection, live video broadcasting, and Snapchat-like disappearing messages.

Its growing user base has made Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook in April 2012, a popular platform for advertisers. Last month, the company revealed that it has more than 1 million advertisers worldwide, while 80 percent of its users follow a business on Instagram.

If you aren’t already one of those 700 million, you can download the Instagram app for free from the App Store and Google Play.

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