Instagram reaches social media milestone: 100 million active users

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing social network purchased by Facebook last year, has reached a milestone important for any social network: 100 million monthly active users.

The mobile app, which has recently begun expanding its Web presence, announced the news Tuesday by uploading a photo to the social network.

“Today, we’re excited to announce that there are currently 100,000,000 active users on Instagram,” a caption for a photo of the Instagram team says. “You read that number right -- one hundred million people use Instagram every month!”

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Although 100 million doesn’t compare to the more than 1 billion users who log in to Facebook each month, Instagram’s active user base is now roughly half of what Twitter has, which announced in December that it had reached 200 million monthly users.

What makes Instagram’s accomplishment so impressive is that it’s still less than 3 years old (it launched October 2010), and to sign up for the service users have to turn to an iPhone or Android device to create an account.

Instagram reached 90 million monthly users just last month. So although other social networks, including Google+ and LinkedIn, have more active users, Instagram could quickly pass them if it keeps up its pace.

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