Instagram now has a 700-million-strong user army

Not letting Twitter get all the positive news today, Facebook-owned Instagram announced on its blog that it has reached a new milestone of its own.

“We’re thrilled to announce that our community has grown to more than 700 million Instagrammers. And the last 100 million of you joined faster than ever,” the company exclaims in a thank you note to users.

And yeah, those 100-million monthly active users did join faster than ever.

After it’s 2010 launch, it took over three years to gain its first 100-million users. And considering that the company announced that it reached the 600-million user mark in December 2016, it took just over a financial quarter to rack up the next 100 mil.

Instagram now has 700-million monthly active users, but hasn’t revealed how many log on daily

Twitter, during a similar time period, added just under ten million new users to its network.

But Twitter isn’t Instagram’s big focus.

For Facebook, the new figure is a big indication that its driving off its mobile advertising competitor Snapchat. At last count, Snap Inc’s social network has just below 160-million daily active users.

700 million now have access to Instagram Stories, the original copy-paste version of Snapchat Stories. And considering that Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook all boast more than a billion users each, Instagram could well be up there within the next year.

“From all of us at Instagram, thank you!” the company concludes.