Social Media

Instagram reaches 600 million monthly active users

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Instagram said Thursday that it now has 600 million monthly active users. That means it's added 100 million users in six months, its fastest growth rate ever, and has doubled its user base in just two years.

This remarkable growth shows that the increasing popularity of rival Snapchat is not eating into Instagram's growth. The company has added new features that are similar to Snapchat's core offerings, such as Instagram Stories, and just this week Instagram also introduced a live video that disappears as soon as you're done recording.

The company, owned by Facebook, has also taken steps in the past six months to crack down on abuse on the platform, giving users the ability to filter out abusive words and delete followers.

Instagram's accelerating growth is particularly striking in contrast to Twitter, which has a very different product, and has struggled with stagnating user growth. Instagram is now twice the size of Twitter, which has been stuck at around 300 million users since the first quarter of 2015.