Whilst being only the fifth most popular social media platform in Japan, Instagram is seeing one of the fastest increases in usage across the country. A survey undertaken by JTB Tourism Research and Consulting Co., shows that whilst Line remains ahead of the pack with 77% of smartphone users accessing the app in 2016, Instagram is growing at a much quicker rate even though it only boasts a 20% smartphone penetration rate. This is compared to only 13.9% of smartphone users accessing their account in 2015, an increase of 5.4%. This growth compares well against Line which saw a 2.4% increase over the same 12 months, and YouTube and Twitter which both saw losses of around 2%. Instagram was only beaten in growth in Japan by Facebook.
