Online mobile photo and video sharing app Instagram has just hit 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store.
Instagram was launched in October 2010. Within three months the Instagram community grew to 1 million, and within a year it further shot up to 10 million users. Initially, the app was available only for iOS devices, but the growing popularity led the company to launch the service for Android in April 2012.
Instagram is just the 19th app to join the 1 billion club in the Google Play Store. The first app to achieve the milestone was Gmail, followed by Google Maps and then YouTube and Facebook.
Instagram is Facebook's fourth app to reach a billion downloads on the Google Play Store only after Facebook app, WhatsApp and the Facebook Messenger app. In June, Instagram announced that it had more than 500 million Instagrammers and over 300 million daily active users.
"Our community also continues to become even more global, with more than 80 percent living outside of the United States," says Instagram.
While Instagram says it has 500 million users and considering the app has now been downloaded over 1 billion times on Google Play Store, this means that the app has been installed repeatedly by many users.
Instagram has been developing new features regularly to keep users interested in the app. With the growing demand for video streaming, Instagram increased the maximum video duration to 60 seconds from 15 seconds.
"We want to bring you fun, flexible and creative ways to create and watch video on Instagram. As part of our continued commitment, you'll soon have the flexibility to tell your story in up to 60 seconds of video. This is one step of many you'll see this year," says Instagram.
In early August, Instagram also announced a new feature called Instagram Stories, which allows users to share videos and photos that would disappear after 24 hours and will not appear on the user's profile grid or in their feed.
"Today, we're introducing Instagram Stories, a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story," says Instagram.
It is highly likely that Instagram will continue to add new features that will attract more users to the app in the near term.
