ADVERTISEMENT

Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More than $100 Billion

Instagram could account for about 16 percent of Facebook’s revenue over the next year, Bloomberg data showed.

Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More than $100 Billion
Facebook Inc.’s Instagram application is displayed on an Apple Inc. iPhone in this arranged photograph taken in Washington. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, if it were a stand-alone company, marking a 100-fold return for the app was purchased in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

The photo-sharing platform, which reached 1 billion monthly active users earlier this month, will likely help nudge Instagram revenue past $10 billion over the next 12 months, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jitendra Waral wrote in a report Monday. Instagram is attracting new users faster than Facebook’s main site and is on track to exceed 2 billion users within the next five years, Waral said. While the social network already has surpassed that milestone, Instagram’s audience is younger than its parent, making it more attractive to advertisers. And unlike Facebook, Instagram is still growing in the U.S.

Instagram could account for about 16 percent of Facebook’s revenue over the next year, up from 10.6 percent last year, according to eMarketer data cited by Bloomberg Intelligence. The unit announced the addition of Instagram television, or IGTV, last week as an attempt to catalyze future growth. Most of Instagram’s 2018 revenue growth will still likely come from its newsfeed ads, as the TV platform is still developing, Waral said.

Facebook shares slipped 3.7 percent to $194.23 at 2:12 p.m. in New York, as the broader market also declined. The stock has gained 10 percent so far this year, compared with a 1.5 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More than $100 Billion

To contact the reporter on this story: Emily McCormick in New York at emccormick14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Andrew Pollack

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.