Instagram hits 5 billion photos shared as it closes Facebook deal

Instagram and Facebook sealed their relationship on Thursday, closing the deal between the two companies as Instagram noted it’s hit 5 billion total photos shared, a landmark for the popular photo-sharing app acquired by Facebook for an initial price $ 1 billion in April.

Because Facebook’s share price has dropped dramatically since its IPO, and Instagram originally took 23 million shares at a price of $ 30 a share, the deal is now worth significantly less than it was in April. In August, the Federal Trade Commission signed off on the deal after conducting a nonpublic investigation due to concern that Facebook was becoming a dominant advertiser in photo sharing.

Instagram noted the milestone on its blog, as it reassured passionate Instagram users that their favorite service won’t change because of the deal:

What makes this even more exciting is that our deal with Facebook has closed, which means we can now work together to evolve and build a better Instagram for everyone. While our team is making the short move to the Facebook offices, Instagram isn’t going anywhere. The Instagram app and its features will stay the same one you know and love, and we’ll keep working together to build a better Instagram for everyone.

Facebook, which has more than 300 million photos uploaded to its site every day, wrote in a blog post that the company is excited to let Instagram continue to grow its product with the resources of Facebook’s infrastructure behind it:

As we said from the beginning, we are committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Instagram will continue to serve its community, and we will help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure. We also can’t wait to work with the talented Instagram team to improve the mobile experience.



GigaOM