Instagram:10 million new users in 10 days

Photo sharing app hits 40 million users, but still has ways to go to beat Angry Birds

April 2012 is looking to become an historic month for Instagram.

First, it launched its long awaited Android app. Then, earlier this week, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion.

Now, there’s even better news for the photo-sharing app: it just passed 40 million users, according to Instagram’s API.

That number comes only 10 days after the debut of the Android app. It had one million Android downloads in its first day, and has now jumped 10 million total users in that time frame.

Instagram User History

Instagram was an immediate hit when it launched in September 2010, reaching one million users on its iPhone app in two months.

The app grew steadily, and by December 2011, it had 15 million users. Instagram then nearly doubled that number by March of this year.

And now, after being bought by Facebook and finally putting its Android app out, Instagram is certainly the hottest photo-sharing app out there.

How big is Instagram’s success?

Instagram’s one million Android downloads in its first 24 hours is no small number, but it is not unprecedented.

The app will have a long way to go to reach the heights reached by games like Angry Birds and Draw Something.

In November, the three versions of the Angry Birds app that were available at the time totaled half a billion total downloads together. That was before the recent release of Angry Birds Space app in March, which saw 10 million downloads in three days. That number easily beats out the March 2011 debut of Angry Birds Rio, which had 10 million downloads in 10 days.

Despite its dominance, Angry Birds has had some recent competition from another game: Draw Something, designed by OMGPOP, which was purchased by Zynga for $180 million last month. Earlier this month, Draw Something took the top spot away from Angry Birds Space after it had dominated for two weeks. The Draw Something app was downloaded 50 million time in it first 50 days, making it the fastest selling game on iTunes. 

Instagram’s numbers are impressive, and its new Android app already seems to be paying off. Photo sharing apps still have a long way to go, though, before they can start making a dent in the dominance of mobile games. Last year, nine out of the top 10 paid iPhone apps were games, with Camera+ being the only non-game app to make the list. Three of the top six spots were a version of Angry Birds.

Facebook paid a lot of money for Instagram, so perhaps mobile photo sharing will be the next big thing in app downloads.

(Image source: androidauthority.com)