Instagram hits the 200 million active users milestone

Facebook’s first high-profile acquisition is chugging along: Instagram said a blog post Tuesday that it’s surpassed 200 million monthly active users, up from 100 million just one year ago. According to the post, 50 million of those users were acquired in the last six months, and now roughly 65 percent of the user base is outside of the United States. 

It’s a testament to Instagram‘s success that when Mark Zuckerberg revealed the photo-sharing service had crossed the 200-million-user milestone, it barely rated a mention. The statistic arrived in the middle of an investor-relations phone call explaining why he had just purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion — or more than twice the price of Instagram. Zuckerberg’s rationale: Facebook said it would be happy if Instagram hit 100 million users, and now they’re at twice that. In other words, you can’t always predict where these technologies are going. Zuckerberg dropped the news a little early to make a point, it seems. Instagram’s Tumblr made it official about an hour after the call, and added a few juicy details, including the fact that 20 billion photos (and counting) have been uploaded to the service.