Back in June, Instagram hit a milestone of 5 million users, and when it did, the total number of photos shared on the service was 95 million. Given the rate of growth, this number was expected to pass 100 million shortly. Though Instagram’s 4-person team missed pointing out that milestone, on Wednesday they announced that Instagrammers have now uploaded a grand total of 150 million photos.
That means the social photo-sharing service now receives about 1.3 million photos per day – 15 shots per second, and you realize that people really DO like sharing photos.
The official 150 millionth photo, uploaded by Instagram user janefot
“The growth of photos being posted per day is tracking on an exponential curve,” Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom says. “It’s the one curve we look at to measure the health of the service and the addiction of the product.”
Becoming A Social Network
For Systrom, Instagram’s instant and continued success has allowed it to become a social network – not just a mobile application – where photography doubles as a form of communication.
“We’re one of the fastest growing social networks in mobile – having remained in the top 25 free apps in the App Store for over a month now,” he says. “Where mobile apps come and go, Instagram has continued to see unprecedented growth in users and usage.”
The service is now well past 7 million users, up over 2 million in less than 2 months without any sort of strategic promotions. But perhaps Bieber played a part in this one.
