Instagram grew its user base to 150 million monthly active users in half the time that it took Twitter and in two years less than Facebook, according to research by the think-tank L2 Intelligence.
During 2013, the company gained more than 60 million new monthly active users. By comparison, Twitter only gained 37 million new users in the same time period.
What's rather strange, however, is that Instagram hasn't publically disclosed its number of monthly active users since September 2013. During Facebook's Q4 earnings call, though, FB CFO David Ebersman revealed that Instagram doubled its user base, which should put its total around 180 million monthly active users.
Instagram also gets 1,000 comments per second and 8,500 likes per second, totaling 1.2 billion likes per day, according to L2. About 16 billion photos have been uploaded to the app since it launched.
Here's the chart showing Instagram's growth, and the product developments that fueled it along the way:
L2 Intelligence Report