Instagram has grown to 3 billion monthly active users, according to announcements by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram Head Adam Mosseri.
This is a notable milestone for the Meta-owned platform, which hit 1 billion users back in 2018.
“If you look at the last few years, almost all of our growth has been driven by DMs, Reels, and recommendations,” Mosseri said in an Instagram video. “Because of that, we’re going to continue to focus on those products and reorient the app more around DMs, Reels, and recommendations over the next couple of months.”
While the emphasis on short-form video and recommendations from accounts users don’t follow has driven growth on Instagram, these changes have sparked some frustration among users who are more interested in seeing photos or other content from people they already know.
In the next few months, Mosseri said, Instagram will test a way for users to fine-tune the algorithm that recommends content on Reels — later, this feature may extend to other feeds on Instagram.
