A total of 300 million people uses Instagram on a daily basis whereas Instagram is used by over 500 million people every month. This statement was issued by the company who informed that more than 80 percent of the app users are located outside the United States.
In September 2015, the Facebook-owned company boasted of approximately 400 million users but in less than a year, Instagram has experienced an inflow of around 100 million additional users. This goes on to show the overall popularity of the photo-sharing app.
Facebook acquired Instagram in the year 2012 for a price of $1 billion. The deal involved a lot of scepticism from investors but the application has proved its worth because as of now, it has taken over its main rival (Twitter has 300 million users) with a huge margin.
Instagram is turning out to be a major revenue generating asset for Facebook. As it has comfortably grown into a popular social media app, it is expected to generate a lot of revenue through advertising, which works in Facebook’s favour. Research firm eMarketer has predicted that the app will generate around $1.5 billion for this year. It is undeniable that Facebook as a parent company has had a significant role to play in popularizing Instagram.
The 1.3 billion user company also owns ‘WhatsApp’ which is the most widely used messaging platform in the world. To recall, Facebook purchased WhatsApp for a staggering $19 billion in the year 2014 and as of now, WhatsApp has also reached the priceless threshold of 1 billion users.
Commenting on Facebook’s strategy, Chief Analyst with JackDaw Research, Jan Dawson said, “Facebook has arguably been deploying the candy bar strategy- own as many of the brands on the shelf as possible to maximize your market share”.
So far, ‘Snapchat’ is one such popular exception, which is not owned by Facebook. Maybe this will change soon because Facebook has already tried to buy Snapchat, twice.
