Instagram, the popular Android and iOS photo sharing app, will be made available on Microsoft Windows Phone soon, according to Tom Warren of The Verge. Sources familiar with the plans told Tom Warren that Instagram will be on the Windows Phone operating system as a standalone app in the fourth quarter of 2012, despite its recent acquisition by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) for $1 billion.
Warren points to a video from Nokia that shows the “app running as a live tile with comment and like information from Instagram.” This is all good news for Windows Phone users and fans. Last week, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) unveiled Lumia 920, which runs on Windows Phone 8. Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) are striving to add more popular apps to their list.
After Instagram’s acquisition by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), people feared that the app would lose its independence. However, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) keeps reiterating that Instagram will remain a completely separate business. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) said, “We are committed to building and growing Instagram independently. But 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.”
Instagram recently surpassed 5 billion photos milestone, but that seems very small considering that approximately 300 million photos are uploaded every day on Facebook. Additionally, Instagram is currently confined to the mobile world only.
Though Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) had announced Instagram acquisition back in April 2012, it was completed in August after regulatory approval, and 16 top Instagram executives moved to Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Instagram is adding 10 million users every month on an average.
The Windows Phone already has a number of Instagram-like apps such as Bubblegum and InstaCam, but they are not nearly as popular as Instagram. If it were just the question of imitating Instagram, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) would never have bothered to acquired it. Whether, the price of $1 billion is justified, is a whole separate topic. Instagram already has a large userbase, and people are not going to switch to another app any time soon. So, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) might be wise to bring this popular app on its platform.
