You know what the Instagram way is? It’s not just settling for 30 million iOS users. Hell no. It’s about launching on Google Play for Android after reaching that milestone to then get one million downloads in the first 24 hours and now five million in the first six days.
Oh, and being acquired by Facebook for $1 billion. That too.
There really isn’t a way to overstate Instagram’s success. It’s only been in existence for around a year and a half now and not once made any revenue, yet it climbs seemingly effortlessly to what will soon be 50 million active users and got snatched up for ten figures. The small, but proud team of 13 at Instagram have a lot to celebrate today. 5 million downloads in 6 days on Google Play makes Instagram’s launch one of the biggest in history on Android. By comparison, it took nearly six months for Instagram to reach 5 million downloads on iOS.
There’s no doubt Instagram was able to justify the $1 billion price tag because of the launch on Android destined to be huge. The app remained exclusive to iOS for well over a year while Android users had to watch with jealousy as their iPhone-equipped friends snapped and shared fun pictures with filters, borders and the like. Now that Instagram expanded its horizons to Android, its valuation quickly skyrocketed. Facebook knows exactly what it wants to do with Instagram on iOS and Android, too. No company spends $1 billion merely hoping for a good outcome.
If you have an Android device and you haven’t downloaded Instagram yet, you should probably get on that.