Financial Tribune- Instagram hit 24 million active users in Iran in January, making the country the seventh biggest market for the photo-sharing app.

Iran has 80 million people, which means that 30% of the local population use Instagram, online statistics service Statista reported.

The US-based company last November added support for languages that are written and read from right to left, like Persian.

The social media network is vastly popular with Americans. With 110 million active users, the US is ranked as the largest Instagram market worldwide followed by Brazil (57 million), Indonesia (53 million), India (52 million), Turkey (32 million) and Russia (29 million).

Japan is ranked after Iran at eighth place with 22 million Instagram users. It merits mention that the population of Japan (126 million) is 1.6 times more than Iran.

The platform reported 800 million active users in September 2017.

Instagram is the second most popular social media network in Iran. The messaging app Telegram, which is also used as a social media platform, has an estimated 40 million Iranian users.

Earlier last week Telegram released a long-awaited update for the application and it is now available in Persian. The move is certain to increase the number of Telegram users.