Instragram has announced that it’s going to release an Android application very soon. Instagram is a photo editing and sharing tool available only for iOS devices, and now it’s coming on Android smartphones and tablets as well. The company’s co-founder didn’t speak about other platforms, meaning that an official Windows Phone 7 version is not in the works.

According to Co-founder Kevin Systrom, Instagram has already reached 27 million users on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The announcement was made yesterday at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, and Mr. Systrom was very proud that his application has met a “Facebook-level engagement” as 67% of the users who used the app last week, used it again yesterday.

He demoed the Android application for a few minutes, and then he said that this version will be a lot of better than the iOS app which may sound a little “crazy.” Kevin said that developing on both Android and iPhone would have been hard because the team couldn’t have innovated so much, and now it’s the right time to start working on Google’s platform as well.

Co-founder Mike Krieger believes that establishing priorities is the best thing a company can do because it can focus on delivering a great application, rather than releasing two poor apps. He also spoke about the company’s advertising plans, and confirmed that Instagram has a “future plan” which isn’t ready yet.

Krieger added that the team needs to figure out how they can improve the application and turn it into a multi-billion dollar business. On the other hand, Systrom said that “companies are always fundraising” because they’re trying to “create a long-term viable” business that will not fade away.

Instagram is free, doesn’t have any ads, nor does it offer in-app purchases, and the situation will be similar in Android.

Systrom and Kruger will have to congratulate themselves for Instagram’s success as the company was previously offering location-based services like Foursquare or Facebook Places, however, the two folks noticed that beta users were sharing a lot of photos, and that’s how they got the idea of creating a photo editing and sharing application.
The rest is history and now millions of Android users are anxiously waiting for Instagram to become available for download at the Google Play Store.

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