INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Instagram meteoric rise continues, dwarfing the stagnant growth rates of Snapchat and Facebook
Today Instagram announced that it has reached 1 billion monthly active users, after passing 800 million in September 2017 with 500 million
daily users.
That massive audience could be a powerful draw for IGTV, the longer-form video hub it launching for creators today
While IGTV monetization options are expected in the future, content makers may flock to it early just to get exposure and build their fan
base.
Instagram launches IGTV video hub for creators
While Snapchat daily user count grew just 2.13 percent in Q1 2018 to 191 million, and
Facebook monthly count grew 3.14 percent to reach 2.196 billion, Instagram is growing closer to 5 percent per quarter.
Hitting the 1 billion
user milestone could put pressure on Instagram to carry its weight in the Facebook family and bring home more cash
Facebook doesn&t break out Instagram revenue and has never given any guidance about it
But eMarketer estimates that Instagram will generate $5.48 billion in U.S
ad revenue in 2018, up 70 percent from last year
It reports that Instagram makes up 28.2 pecent of Facebook mobile ad revenue.
IGTV could open even more premium mobile ad inventory that
traditional television advertisers crave, which helped push Facebook share price up more that 2.2 precent to $202.
The Instagram brand
increasingly looks like Facebook life raft
Sentiment toward Facebook, especially amongst teens, has been in decline, and it constantly rocked by privacy scandals
But many users don&t even realize Facebook owns Instagram, and still love the photo-sharing app
With the 1 billion user badge, businesses and content creators may take the photo and video app even more seriously
Selling windows into your friends& worlds is a lucrative business.
