Instagram reaches 1 billion active users
(Digital Photography Review)

With its stand-alone IGTV video app Instagram had a big product announcement this week, but at the launch event in San Francisco the company had another milestone to talk about: after surpassing 800 million active users last September, Instagram has now reached the 1 billion mark. After Messenger (1.3 billion), Whatsapp (1.5 billion) and Facebook itself (2.2 billion), this makes the mobile image sharing platform the fourth Facebook-owned social media app to reach this lofty number. When Instagram was taken over by Facebook in 2012, it had approximately 40 million users. The app`s massive growth makes the 1 billion dollar price tag back then look like a very sound investment now. It also shows that the recent privacy controversies around Facebook after the misuse of data belonging to 50 million of its users don`t appear to have a lasting impact on the company`s apps` and services` user numbers.