Facebook's Instagram Could Generate Nearly $9 Billion in Sales This Year

Facebook's (NASDAQ: FB)billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram in 2012 seemed utterly insane at the time. The photo/video sharing service had just a handful of employees back then and less than 30 million registered users. In the years since, Facebook has executed incredibly well with growing Instagram, which is well on its way to becoming Facebook's fourth billion-user platform, alongside Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

Instagram hit 800 million monthly active users (MAUs) in September, meaning it will likely announce 900 million MAUs any day now based on its trajectory.