Instagram has 100 million users, now 12x bigger than it was pre-Facebook acquisition

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that Instagram now has more than 100 million registered users. That's a large number of users that most apps would love to claim, but more impressive is the number of people who use Instagram everyday - 11 million. When Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion last April, Instagram had only 860,000 daily active users. Since that time, Instagram's popularity has skyrocketed to nearly 12 times as many people who use the service each day, which is one of the most-trusted statistics for gauging the health of an app.

After a lengthy iPhone-only period, Instagram expanded to the Android platform one week before the Facebook acquisition. More than 5 million people joined Instagram in the following six days, and the company has continued to rise since debuting on Android.

Facebook would have paid much more than $1 billion if it waited to buy Instagram, so the acquisition's timing was wise. Now Facebook must find a way to generate money with Instagram to warrant that high price. Zuckerberg told the audience at TechCrunch Disrupt that Facebook will keep Instagram as an independent product that has Facebook's resources. It's likely that once Facebook feels comfortable with the advertisements that it shows in its own mobile apps, a similar ad program will arrive for Instagram.