On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Facebook confirms that Instagram now has 400 million monthly active users larger than Twitter. More than 80 million pictures were shared daily at the Facebook-owned service.

Reports show that more than 75% of its users live outside the United States while more than half of its users, who have joined this lifestyle app since last year, live in Europe and Asia. Having these figures, it appeared that it took it nearly five years to reach its current milestone.

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Facebook bought the photo-sharing service in 2012 and its usage jumped 25 percent from December last year which is more than 316 million Twitter users. Nine months were allotted for this photo-sharing app to pin their latest 100 million regular users.

Investors were surprised before when Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion with only 30 million users at that time. Creating separate applications as a business strategy appears to be worth it. The messaging and texting app, WhatsApp has earned Facebook $19 billion in 2014. It has also reached 900 million monthly active users -- claiming that it is more of a global utility.

According to Wall Street Journal, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a shareholder meeting in June that more than 700 million active users joined the standalone Messenger app. The same is said to benefit from its deep ties with Facebook and he never expected that a service like this can be a real business until it gains a billion users.

Cnet also reported that notable celebrities such as soccer superstar David Beckham and Arthur Ashe Courage Awardee Caitlyn Jenner were added in Instagram. Many users post images of sunsets, cats and food. Some largest brands worldwide also began using the said phot-sharing app for business and commerical purposes.

To add some more, New York Fashion Week was featured in Instagram. Not to mention, Disney debuts a new teaser video of the upcoming film 'Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens'.

Currently new ad formats, such as a 30-second video ad, are tested as new features are also introduced -- aiming to help marketers keep track of their ads efficiently and effectively.

TagsInstagram, active monthly users, Mark Zuckerberg