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Facebook's Instagram is estimated to be worth more than $100bn, if it were a stand-alone company, marking a 100-fold return for the app that 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 $10bn 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 US.
Instagram could account for about 16% of Facebook’s revenue over the next year, up from 10.6% 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 catalyse 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% to $194.23 at 14:12 in New York, as the broader market also declined. The stock has gained 10% so far this year, compared with a 1.5% gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
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