Facebook to Acquire Instagram for $1 Billion USD

Facebook announced that it will acquire Instagram, the popular mobile photo-sharing service for $1 billion USD cash and shares.

No worry, Instagram fans. Instagram app will still available with the app features.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and co-founder, posted an announcement on his FB timeline:

…we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

The Instagram CEO, Kevin, also promised that Instagram app “is not going away” in his blog post “Instagram + Facebook”:

The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love. You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique.

Instagram is a camera app with various filters and feature to share to different social networks. The 13 employees company has over 30 million Apple iPhone users. The Android version, which just released early April, achieved 1 million downloads in just 12 hours.

My two cents

Wow! 1 billion (1 thousand million or 1,000,000,000) USD to acquire an app company, but keep it independently?! Salute to Facebook!

By the way, Facebook mobile app sucks. I am looking forward for better camera features in Facebook mobile app. How about you?

Update: Gigaom pointed out that Facebook buy Instagram might because Instagram is a Facebook competitor on “mobile photo sharing”.