Though Google+ still has a long way to go to get close to Facebook’s 800 million users, it’s an impressive figure bearing in mind it only launched in June last year. Apparently, it took Facebook four years to reach the same amount of subscribers .
Indeed, Google+ CEO Larry Page is excited about its success so far, claiming the service is "growing tremendously" with users more than doubling over the same period last quarter.
The latest figures for Google+ subscribers were revealed during last week’s quarterly earnings call, but some analysts have been skeptical of the claims after Google failed to offer a breakdown of the numbers.
'Hangout' to
video-chat, one of Google+'s many features
Suspicions as to exactly how many Google+ subscribers actually use the service have been raised because Google automatically signs up new Gmail users to the social-networking service, whether they're interested or not, and has been doing so since November.
Requests made to Google to produce figures that don’t include people who have logged into a Google session to check emails or view Google documents have fallen on deaf ears though, while some companies have accused it of using its own search engine unfairly for self-promotion.
Page doesn’t seem too worried about speculation at this point, though it would be very interesting to see how Google arrived at its figures.
"I am super excited about the growth of ... Google+, which now has 90 million users globally — well over double what I announced just three months ago," said Page. "By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services."
