Facebook‘s acquisition of Instagram recently hit the headlines, in spite of the deal taking place almost a decade ago. The Federal Trade Commission accused the social media giant of illegal monopolization as it looks to reverse the high-profile acquisition, a deal that the FTC voted in favor of back when it was first announced. In light of these recent events, here’s a quick look at when Facebook acquired Instagram, and how much the company paid for the photo-sharing app.
Even though the Facebook-Instagram merger is now under the spotlight, this is not the first time this year that the company has faced scrutiny for its Instagram purchase. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg encountered backlash over the same issue months ago, due to a series of emails that were unearthed suggesting that the merger was completed with the intent of consolidating the competition before it became a potential threat.
Facebook announced and finalized the deal back in 2012. The original April 2012 announcement confirmed the acquisition cost $1 billion in a combination of cash and company shares, and included a lengthy public announcement from the company’s CEO. Zuckerberg expressed that the intent was to keep “building and growing Instagram independently” instead of just integrating the service and features into Facebook. Zuckerberg went on to say that the acquisition was “an important milestone” for the company and that Facebook had no intention of “doing many more of these, if any at all. ”
Facebook’s Instagram Purchase Was Only The Beginning
While the Facebook CEO’s public statement from eight years ago gave the impression the company’s expansion days were over, what happened afterwards didn’t exactly marry with that idea. Facebook went on to acquire a number of other businesses over the years. One of the more notably additions was the widely-utilized messaging app WhatsApp and this was quickly followed up with the purchase of Oculus VR. Even more recently, the company invested in and acquired Giphy, the animated graphic database.
Whether or not Facebook continues its expansion still remains to be seen, but that doesn’t change the fact that it has certainly accumulated quite a number of companies after initially claiming little intention of doing so. Likewise, despite Zuckerberg’s claims of building Instagram separately from Facebook, and even though they are still separate apps and services today, there have been signals that the two have gotten closer to becoming one since then. The most recent example of this was when Facebook started testing a feature that seemingly blurs the lines between both platforms, by providing the option to view Instagram Stories in the Facebook app.
