500 million people now use Instagram every month, 300 million daily

Instagram today announced two new milestones: 500 million users per month, of which 300 million use it daily. Eighty percent of the total users live outside the US.

Instagram’s last major statistical milestone was in September, when it hit 400 million users. That means it was able to add 100 million users in the span of just nine months, and shows the platform is still growing rapidly despite launching nearly six years ago.

It’s another boon to Facebook’s social platforms. WhatsApp has one billion monthly active users as of February, Messenger has 900 million as of April, while Facebook proper has over 1.65 billion since January.

Meanwhile, Twitter has been around since 2006 but has ‘just’ 310 million users, and has struggled to maintain growth momentum. While there’s only so much you can expect a social network to grow, clearly Facebook’s hit something of a magic formula.