Instagram reached 700 million monthly active users this week after seeing record growth in recent months. The company announced the milestone in a blog post earlier today, claiming, “The last 100 million of you [users] joined faster than ever.” It reached 600 million members four months ago.
The impressive statistic means Instagram has found a way to double its total user base in the last two years. The Facebook-owned social media platform attributes its steady grown to easier app signups, and quick ways of finding Facebook friends on the mobile app.
“Growth was driven by a number of factors, including our ability to better connect people with their friends on Instagram” said a spokesperson at the company. “We also took steps to simplify and improve our sign-up process, which helped bring in new people from all over the world.”
New features rolled out over the past year including a blatant Snapchat ripoff also appear to resonate well with users. Last fall, Instagram introduced “Stories,” a carbon-copy of one of Snapchat’s most iconic features. It quickly became more popular than its source material, and caused Snapchat’s growth to decline by 82 percent.
Instagram remains in seventh place among social media platforms by user base—a favorable position considering stiff competition from the likes of similar camera-based apps like Snapchat and Pinterest. The company is on the verge of joining the one-billion users club alongside Facebook (1.86 billion) and WhatsApp (1.2 million). It has more than twice the number of users as Twitter and more than four times that of Snapchat or LinkedIn.
