Massive Instagram growth: 100MM new users in just 9 months

Almost five years after Instagram launched and just nine months after announcing it had reached 300 million users, Instagram has announced it has officially hit the 400 million user mark.

This landmark achievement comes on the heels of the announcement that the Facebook-owned photo sharing site was opening up its ad platform to all, further boosting the desire for companies to pitch its product and content via the ‘sponsored’ posts that are appearing more and more in the timeline of users.

In the announcement blog post celebrating its 400 million users, Instagram notes that international growth is a key component to further boosting its numbers:

Our community has evolved to be even more global, with more than 75 percent living outside of the US […] Among the last 100 million to join, more than half live in Europe and Asia. The countries that added the most Instagrammers include Brazil, Japan and Indonesia.

Interestingly, it appears Instagram has managed to pass the 400 million user mark in almost the same amount of time it took Facebook to do so, further testament that the US$1 billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook was not only a steal, but mutually beneficial.

For comparison, the publicly traded Twitter, whose shares are at US$26.84 at the time of writing this – just over half of its IPO price – is sitting at 316 million active users.

Next up for Instagram is the even more significant 500 million user mark. At its current rate, we’ll likely see the 500 million milestone within 7–9 months, but only time can tell.