Popular photo-sharing app Instagram today announced that it now has over 700 million monthly active users. The company has gained 100 million new followers in just under 5 months. It crossed the 600 million active user mark in December 2016.
"We've made it even easier for people across the globe to join the Instagram community, share their experiences and strengthen connections to their friends and passions. With new features like stories, live video and disappearing messages in Direct, people now have more ways than ever to express themselves and feel closer to what matters to them," Instagram said in a blog post.
Inspired by Snapchat, Instagram's 'story' feature was introduced last year in August and has been doing quite well since then. According to latest reports, it has surpassed 200 million daily active users, which is greater than Snapchat's user-base.
Here is the timeline of major milestones in Instagram's journey:
- October 6, 2010 – Instagram started
- December 21, 2010 – 1 million
- February 26, 2013 – 100 million
- March 25, 2014 – 200 million
- December 10, 2014 – 300 million
- September 22, 2015 – 400 million
- June 21, 2016 – 500 million
- December 15, 2016 — 600 million
- April 26, 2017 — 700 million
The company is trying to expand its presence in India as well. It recently conducted a workshop with government officials to encourage them to use Instagram.