Photo-sharing network Instagram has revealed that its network now boasts a user base of more than 150 million across the Android and iOS platforms.
Bosses at the Facebook-owned app also revealed that around a third of its users joined the network over the course of the last six months.
Along with the impressive growth announcement , the company confirmed that it will soon be showing adverts.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Instagram’s business operations director, Emily White, said that Instagram would likely be selling ads before the close of 2014.
White wasn’t specific in regards to how users would be shown adverts – whether they would be appearing on their news feeds in the same manner as Facebook and Twitter ads, or whether they would appear as pop ups when changing between screens, as is the case with some apps.
While White reiterated that Instagram as a company isn’t under any immediate pressure to monetise its services, she confirmed that it wanted to at some point in the near future.
Instagram is widely expected to add some of the world’s leading brands to its list of advertisers, with White recently meeting representatives from Coca-Cola, Ford and homeware retailer Williams-Sonoma.
Back in April, Instagram released figures showing that half of its users now access the app through Android software – just a year after it became available to users of Google’s popular operating system. Before that point, it was an exclusive iOS app.
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