Instagram has released its new instant-messaging photo app in Australia.

The company has become the latest firm to imitate the instant image-sharing technology developed by Snapchat.

The smartphone app named 'Bolt' allows users to instantly send photos or videos to friends. The app is available to both iPhone and Android users. It may be recalled that Bolt was launched in New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa last month.

Users just need to sign up to Bolt with their phone number and select a list of up to 20 'favourite' friends. They can use this app to simultaneously capture a photo or video, choose a recipient and send the photo by just tapping the phone once.

Additional features include adding text captions and replying directly to receive messages with another photograph. And like Snapchat, the user once 'swipe' a Bolt message it disappears forever.

It may be recalled that Tinder rolled out its own Snapchat-like feature 'Moments' just two months ago. This hook-up app allows users to annotate and send photographs to their Tinder matches. Once users swipe left or right to indicate whether or not they like a photo, the photo disappears.

In 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for a whopping $US1 billion. The deal had left the analysts surprised because the photo-messaging app had not made any profit at that time.