Instagram’s monthly user base in the US grew by almost 60% last year, a faster-than-expected rate of growth that propelled it to more than 64 million users, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates.
The short-term forecast is certainly more bullish than estimates released last year by eMarketer: this year’s forecast calls for 89.4 million US users by the end of next
year, a significant hike from last year’s forecast of 50.6 million users by 2016’s end.
With its strong growth last year, eMarketer notes that Instagram passed Twitter in US monthly users, becoming the second-largest social network in the US in the process. In the years to come, its expected to consolidate that position, predicted to boast more than 40 million more US users than Twitter by 2019.
While eMarketer doesn’t forecast last year’s 60% growth rate being matched in the years to come, the platform should maintain double-digit growth until 2018, when it will exceed 100 million US users and reach almost one-third of the US internet population.
Instagram’s user base will continue to consist mainly of youth, although older groups will also gravitate to the platform. Users aged under 35 are estimated to have comprised 69.3% share of all U.S. users last year, with that figure expected to decline to 63.5% by 2019.
By 2019, user aged 55 and older are forecast to account for more than 1 in 10 (11.8% of) Instagram users, up from 8.1% share last year.