Recap: Facebook in 2012 stunned onlookers when it agreed to purchase photo-sharing app Instagram for a whopping $1 billion. Less than two years later, however, the social networking giant shelled out $19 billion for instant messaging platform WhatsApp and had grown Instagram to a valuation of $35 billion.
A full six years in, Instagram is really flourishing under Facebook's ownership. According to data recently compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence, the media sharing app would be worth more than $100 billion if it were a standalone company. That's good for a 100-fold return on investment since the 2012 acquisition and its future looks brighter than ever.
Instagram surpassed the one billion monthly active user mark earlier this month. According to Bloomberg, it is attracting new users faster than Facebook and is on track to smash the two billion user mark within the next five years.
Facebook has already eclipsed the two billion user mark but Instagram's audience is younger than its parent company, making it more enticing to advertisers.
Over the next year, Instagram could account for as much as 16 percent of Facebook's overall revenue, data from eMarketer indicates. It was responsible for 10.6 percent of Facebook's earnings last year.
Instagram earlier this month announced IGTV, a hub dedicated to long-format video consumption. Most of Instagram's revenue growth this year will still come from its newsfeed ads, however, as the video platform needs time to gain traction.