I may have had a slow start, but Google+ is now adding new users at a fair lick. The growth of the social networking arm of Google is accelerating, and it now claims to have over 62 million users, with approximately 12 million of those coming in December 2011 alone.

Additionally, Google is predicting that, by the end of 2012, it will have over 400 million users, roughly half of what Facebook currently claims it has (although, by the end of the year, it is expected that FB will have over 1 billion).

It is unclear exactly why Google+ is starting to gain traction, although sign-ups to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, is stated as being one of the reasons: "It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 sign-ups, 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," says Paul Allen, unofficial Google+ statistician.

The figures are based on his team running "hundreds of queries on various surnames which we have been tracking since July", and these result in some impressive tracking figures. On 13 July 2010, Google+, it is claimed, had 10 million users; on 1 October, 38 million (with Larry Page claiming that it had 40 million on 13 October); and it is forecast that there will be 85.2 million on 1 February 2012.

The precise statistics also state that Google+ will hit 100 million users on 25 February 2012.

Will you be one of those joining up? Or is Google+ just one social network too many? Let us know in the comments below...