Instagram announced that it now has 1 billion users worldwide. It had 800 million users in September of last year, which was 200 million more than that same time the year before.
“It’s incredible, and it’s something Mike and I never thought would happen,” co-founder Kevin Systrom said. It’s unclear where most of these new users came from. Last year, most of the growth was attributed to the launch of Stories.
Over the past year, the company’s expanded in-app creation tools by letting users add GIFs, emoji sliders, and polls to their stories.
As for Snapchat, it is still trying to grow its user base. It most recently averaged 191 million daily active users. Instagram also announced its new IGTV standalone app feature long-form, vertical videos, in an attempt to compete against Snapchat and YouTube.
Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, Inc. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 exclusively on iOS. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock.
