Google+ Now Has 62 Million Users, Predicted to Hit 400 Million by the End of 2012

Google+ user base is growing at a fast pace and is currently counting 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com and Google+ unofficial traffic analyst. The search giant’s social network is adding 625,000 new users each day, Allen says. However, his report does not answer the question about the number of active users that the social network actually has.

“It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks,” Allen says on his Google+ profile page.

According to Allen’s report, Google+ has seen a steady growth in terms of new users since it was released to the public in July and the pace in which the network is adding users is only expected to accelerate. Allen and his team estimate that the network will reach 65.8 million users by January 1, and then climb to 85.2 million users by February 1. Allen says if the current pace of new signups continues, Google+ can finish 2012 with 283 million users. However, he expects the growth to further accelerate and predicts Google+ will see more than 400 million users by the end of next year.

“700,000 Android devices are activated daily and this will become a very significant source of new users for Google+,” Allan says. Other factors that he sees will drive the growth of G+ are integration of G+ into Google’s other products, and release of new APIs that will enable developers to “build experiences on top of Google+ and make it even better.”

Google+ was recently updated with several new features aimed at improving the user experience on the network. The new Google+  features include the addition of fine-grained controls, Google+ Photos updates, as well as three new G+ Pages features that were highly requested by users.