Instagram snaps up half a billion users

More than 500 million Instagram accounts have been created, the image-led social network has announced.

The number of daily users has exceeded 300 million too, with an average of 95 million photos and videos are posted every day, the company also claimed.

To put Instagram’s success into context, Snapchat - its closest competitor - recently celebrated hitting the 100 million user mark. 

A statement from Instagram thanked its users for their "creativity, openness", and for making the picture-sharing network "a place where the everyday and the epic are always within reach".

Launched in October 2010, Instagram racked up its first million users within two months and hit the five million mark by June 2011. 

It was acquired by Facebook for around $1 billion (£681 million) in April 2012, by which time it had attracted more than 30 million registered users. 

Initially, users were only able to publish square images, with a limited choice of filters, but restrictions have been dropped in recent years with users being able to upload videos and images with different dimensions.

May 2016 heralded even more major changes for Instagram. A new logo was introduced along with a new controversial algorithm-based timeline, replacing the previous chronological approach.