Instagram now has more than 400 million users, the company announced yesterday, making it far larger than rival Twitter with around 100 million users.
The photo-sharing app has grown rapidly over the past three years. Last week, the South African Social Media Landscape 2016 study showed Instagram more than doubled its user numbers this year in SA.
The Facebook-owned platform grew locally from 1.1 million in 2014 to 2.68 million users in 2015.
"Instagram usage (in South Africa) is growing at more than 100% per year, faster than Facebook did in this country during the same period," said Facebook EMEA VP Nicola Mendelsohn.
More than 75% of Instagram's users are outside the United States, the company wrote in a blog post. More than half of the 100 million newest users live in Europe and Asia, with Brazil, Japan and Indonesia adding the most users.
The Facebook unit has rolled out a number of products and features this year aimed at getting users to spend more time in the app. This includes allowing pictures to be shared in landscape and portrait, and adding new editing features.
"The big trend last year was the impact of all visual networks," says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. "Now we are seeing not only the impact of Instagram refining its offering, but also of users finding fascinating new ways of making it work for them."
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and has been slow to monetise the app. It recently expanded its platform to all advertisers, rather than a select few, and is expected to make up to $2.8 billion in advertising revenue in 2017, according to eMarketer, a research firm.
Advertising on Instagram will work similarly to how it works on Facebook. It will target specific people using their demographic information and platform-usage habits gathered on the platform.
Facebook now owns many of the most popular apps, including WhatsApp with 900 million users and its Messenger platform, now the second-most popular app ? behind only Facebook ? with 700 million users.
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