Instagram Hits 25 Million Users

Sites include instagr.am . Published on March 17th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

We’ve been following the growth of Instagram for a while and we are happy to bring you news that it is now the world’s largest mobile social network. The platform achieved this feat with its surpassing of 25 million registered users.

Although news of the milestone wasn’t actually broken by Instagram itself, the figure is believed to be credible based on its source (Dirk Singer, the head of U.K. social media agency Rabbit) and the fact that Mr Singer based his analysis on two Instagram web viewers, Statigram and Ink361, both of which use Instagram’s API. Singer’s initial inkling was based on the fact that each Instagram user is given a number—co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom, is apparently number three. Using this data, Singer was able to extrapolate actual user base by tapping into the API data of both Statigram and Ink361.

Singer’s actual tally puts Instagram at just over 26 million users and although the mobile social networking App isn’t accepting or denying the claim, the achievement represents some solid growth in a very short space of time. It was only in December 2011 that we reported Instagram as having 16 million users. If the 26 million holds up, it means the site has grown by over 10 million in just 2+ months. Not bad going for an App.