Facebook paid US$715m for Instagram in the end

25 Oct 2012

Facebook paid precisely US$715m in cash and stock for photo-sharing app firm Instagram, less than the US$1bn originally announced.

According to Facebook’s 10-Q filing, it provided Instagram with US$300m in cash and the remainder consisted of shares – 12m vested Class B common stock and 11m un-vested shares.

The deal was considerably less than the US$1bn trumpeted when it was announced earlier this year pre-Facebook IPO because of the decline in Facebook’s share value.

A large surge in Facebook’s revenues in the recent third quarter contributed to a 19pc jump in Facebook’s share value yesterday to US$23.23.

The surge in share value was attributed to the revelation that revenues from mobile came in at US$150m, three times more than analysts had predicted.

Facebook recently achieved the target of 1bn active users – 14pc of the entire world population.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com