Meta Forced To Sell GIPHY To Shutterstock, Lose IDR 3.9 Trillion!

Meta sells GIPHY at a very cheap price on Shutterstock. (photo: dock. giphy)

JAKARTA - Meta suddenly sells GIPHY at a very cheap price on Shutterstock. The figure is quite far when buying it in 2020.

GIPHY, the GIF search engine, was sold for 53 million US dollars, equivalent to IDR 790 billion, while when it acquired it, Meta had to pour 315 million US dollars or IDR 4.6 trillion.

Secretly, GIPHY has been ingraining to various platforms over the years, empowering many GIF search engine features.

GIPHY calls itself the world's largest animated image and web-based sticker database, mainly used on social media and messaging apps.

According to Shutterstock, GIPHY received more than 1.3 billion search requests daily and pushed for more than 15 billion media shows every day.

Although it is quite profitable for Meta, it should be. But after the acquisition took place, Meta was ordered to sell it by the British Competition and Market Authority (CMA).

The company is challenged to find a suitable GIPHY buyer when GIF was deemed less trendy than three years ago.

Now, GIPHY has found the right future owner in Shutterstock, but for Meta, in this case it suffered a loss of US$262 million (Rp3.9 trillion). The deal is said to be closed in June 2023, pending an unexpected delay.

After this new acquisition, Meta has not completely cut ties with GIPHY. Shutterstock said the social media giant had signed a API agreement to stick with GIPHY, in order to support its platform's GIF search.

Likewise with other social media such as Twitter or Snapchat which can continue to access GIPHY.

GIPHY's content library consists of works contributed by individual artists, as well as media partners such as Disney and Netflix. Thus quoted from Mashable and Slashgear, Wednesday, May 24.