Instagram Passes 80 Million Users

Instagram has surpassed 80 million users, according to CNET. Just three months ago, the popular photo-sharing app announced that it had reached 50 million users, so the app has added 10 million users on average per month since April.

Instagram also announced that users have shared almost 4 billion photos since their launch almost two years ago. The company wrote on their blog,

“We’re excited to announce that the Instagram community has grown to over 80 million registered users who have shared nearly 4 billion photos! Since we launched Instagram in October 2010, we’ve expanded from one platform to two, bringing Instagram to Android users as well as iOS users. As the community has grown, we’ve seen people sharing photos from all around the world, from South Korea to Bolivia, and even underwater!

We’re humbled by the amazing photos from people’s lives we see every day on Instagram, and thank you for being part of this growing community.

The Instagram Team”

Instagram owes much of its growth to the fact that it is no longer an iPhone-exclusive app. It became available in the Google Play store on Android phones and was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in cash and stock in April. The day after Facebook announced it had bought Instagram, it became the top free iPhone app, and the Android app hit 5 million users in just six days. While it was the number three most popular free app in the Play Store when it was first launched for the Play store, it has since dropped to #13.

Instagram’s creator Kevin Systrom told VentureBeat, “The combination of Android and network effects as more people use Instagram mean that we’re able to grow faster now more than ever,” and that the company has “some pretty fun things in the pipeline.”

Instagram’s announcement came the same day Facebook posted its first earnings as a public company; the social network reported a net loss of $157 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with a net income of $240 million, or 11 cents a share for the same quarter last year.