Facebook Company Acquisitions Since 2005 - Infographic

By Rebecca Hill, Outreach Nerd, TechWyseFacebook was initially created for university students in 2004 but quickly grew to one million users in just 10 months since it’s inception. As of today, Facebook boasts 1.7 billion users. This rapid growth has allowed Facebook to become the dominant social media platform, and the company has used some of its fortune to purchase other companies under Facebook – a total of 68 to date.Since 2005 Facbook as made acquisitions totalling $23,124,700,000, more than the GDP of Fiji, Zimbabwe and Maldives combined.In the past 11 years, Facebook has made several notable purchases. The company’s biggest purchase was for the mobile group messaging app, WhatsApp, costing $19 billion in February 2015. Facebook also purchased the highly popular photo sharing app, Instagram, for $1 billion in April 2012.Facebook has acquiried companies from around the world, including the U.S., Malaysia, Israel, Netherlands, Canada, the U.K., India, Finland, Minsk and more. The reasons behind these acquisitions aren't completely clear, however by looking through the infographic you can infer industry trends. For example, Facebook grew from a small – by their standards – $200K acquisition of Aboutface in 2005 to the $2 billion purchase of Oculus Virtual Reality in 2014. This points to an obvious move toward virtual reality technology in social media.Check out the infographic below to learn more about the many companies Facebook acquired and determine for yourself which were worth the price.