인스타그램 월 사용자 4억명 돌파…9개월만에 1억명↑

사진 및 동영상 공유 소셜네트워킹서비스(SNS)인 인스타그램은 월간 활동 사용자 수가 4억명을 돌파했다고 23일 밝혔다.

인스타그램은 지난해 12월 월간 활동 사용자 수 3억명을 넘어선 데 이어 9개월 만에 이런 성과를 냈다.

(Yonhap)

회사 측에 따르면 현재 전체 사용자의 75%가 미국 이외의 지역에서 서비스를 이용하고 있다.

최근 인스타그램을 시작한 1억명의 사용자 중 절반 이상이 유럽과 아시아 지역이며 이 중에서도 특히 인도네시아, 브라질, 일본에서의 신규 가입이 두드러진 것으로 나타났다.

새로운 가입자에는 수백만명의 팔로워를 보유한 영국의 축구 스타 데이비드 베컴(@davidbeckham)과 한류 스타 빅뱅의 탑(@choi_seung_hyun_tttop) 등 유명인들도 들어 있다.

인스타그램 사용자는 하루 평균 8천만장 이상의 사진을 공유하며 35억개의 '좋아요'를 누르는 것으로 집계됐다.

인스타그램은 공식 블로그에서 "시각적인 소통으로 전 세계 4억명의 사용자가 서로 더 가까워졌다"며 "앞으로도 열정적인 커뮤니티에 들어맞는 플랫폼 환경을 제공하기 위해 노력하겠다"고 전했다. (연합)

Instagram tops 400 million users

Instagram has rocketed past the 400-million-user mark, with more than 80 million pictures shared daily at the Facebook-owned service.

The number of people sharing pictures and videos each month using Instagram soared from 300 million at the start of this year and tops the number of people using Twitter monthly by nearly 100 million.

“While milestones like this are important, what really excites us is the way that visual communication makes the world feel a little bit smaller to every one of us,” Instagram said in a blog post.

“Instagrammers continue to capture incredible photos and videos from all corners of the Earth (and even the solar system).”

More than half of the last 100 million people to join Instagram live in Europe or Asia, with Brazil, Japan, and Indonesia seeing the strongest growth, according to the service.

The list of high-profile new Instagram users who quickly won legions of followers included David Beckham, Caitlyn Jenner and footballer Toni Kroos.

Earlier this month, Instagram unveiled plans to expand its offerings to advertisers, opening up possibilities for global marketing efforts on the photo-sharing network.

The expansion is intended to allow advertisers to launch global campaigns in a variety of formats including video ads of up to 30 seconds.

Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook in 2012, has had only limited advertising opportunities up to now.

In 2013, it began with a small number of “sponsored” posts by well-known brands such as Michael Kors and Adidas.

The new system could help Instagram generate considerably more revenue.

Instagram also introduced a service called Marquee, a “premium” advertising product aimed at driving mass awareness in a short time-frame for events like movie premieres and new product launches.

Industry tracker eMarketer estimates that Instagram's worldwide ad revenue this year will grow rapidly, hitting $600 million.

Instagram is seen as a potential growth segment for Facebook, which has nearly 1.5 billion users.

Last month, Instagram broke its square mold with an update that adds portrait and landscape formats to the image-sharing smartphone application, which also opened up new possibilities for advertisers.

Meanwhile, Twitter continues to search for a new leader since Dick Costolo announced on June 12 he was stepping down, with co-founder Jack Dorsey holding the job on an interim basis since July 1.

The unusually long search has some investors and analysts worried over the future of Twitter, which has failed to ignite the kind of growth that many had anticipated when it launched its public offering in 2013. (AFP)