Instagram, Facebook’s only fully-owned platform, has reached 400 million users, beating its biggest rival, Twitter, as the now major social network plans to boost its advertising revenues from the service.
The last 100 million users came to the photo-sharing app during the last nine months and in that number we also saw David Beckham and the once Olympic athlete, Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn Jenner). According to the numbers published by the company, 75% of its users live outside the United States while more than half of the last 100 million users are located in Europe and Asia whereas Brazil, Japan and Indonesia have the most Instagrammers overall.
Facebook must be proud of its acquired company which will now bring more profits than ever to the table, through advertising revenues. In general, Facebook seems to be trying to monetize Instagram by introducing a bunch of promoting features such as sponsored posts and targeted ads.
As for the profits let’s talk with numbers to be more specific. According to eMarketer’s estimations, Instagram will hit $600 million this year, and progress up to 146% in 2016 reaching $1.48 billions while its ad revenue will be responsible for 4 percent of Facebook’s total mobile ad revenue in 2017
Ian Maude, head of digital media at Enders Analysis, told CNBC by phone: “Instagram reaches a different audience so that has an appeal to advertisers and they are selling it as a separate product as a branding tool. The feedback I’ve had from media buyers on Instagram has been pretty good. I think we are going to see revenues on Instagram rise very quickly.”
Despite all the above, the best news for both Facebook and Instagram, is that at the same time that the latter hits such a high number of users, Twitter is desperately looking for new ways to attract some new ones. Interim CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that he was “not satisfied” with Twitter’s audience growth.
“I think the concerns over Twitter are more general, i.e. it’s not about Instagram, it’s about while its growth has stalled, other social media, other instant messaging and communications services and tools continue to grow and it’s being outgrown and outpaced and I think that is the worry,” Maude added.
So perhaps the two rivals are not directly in conflict but one could support that one way or another, the shots have been fired.
Source: CNBC
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