Instagram has added nearly 200M Indian users in 18 months

Meta-owned Instagram has reportedly grown its user base in India by 200 million downloads over the last 18 months. From 209 million users in February 2021, the social media platform expects to hit 400 million users by the end of the current month of August 2022.

In a report by The Economic Times, Instagram was the most downloaded short video social media app in India in the first half of 2022. Instagram had around 118.7 million downloads, while Facebook had around 86.6 million downloads. Other short video apps had downloads in the 25-40 million range.

Speaking to ET, a media planner with information on the matter said, "If you extrapolate the growth, every nine months, Instagram has added 100 million users. In February last year, Instagram had 210 million users in India, and by November it had 309 million. By this month, Instagram will have added another 100 million users, reaching the 400 million mark."

This news comes amidst parent company Meta announcing its first revenue decline as a publicly listed firm during its latest quarterly earnings reports covering the period up to June 30, 2022. The declining revenue comes amidst the company's decision to invest heavily in the metaverse in the last year.