Shutterstock to acquire Giphy for 438 crores: Meta CEO Zuckerberg loses 2150 crores, regulator forced to sell the company
Stock photography company Shutterstock has announced the purchase of animated photo GIFs-making platform Jiffy for $53 million (about Rs 438 crore). Meta will incur a loss of $260 million i.e. around Rs 2150 crore in this deal.
According to the Guardian, Meta struck a deal three years ago to buy Jiffy for $315 million (roughly Rs. 2605 crores). In the year 2022, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stopped the deal from being completed. The CMA believed that this would reduce competition. Facebook would have benefited and other tech companies would have suffered.
Deal can be completed by next month
Shutterstock’s deal to buy Jiffy could be completed by next month. However, Shutterstock has said that Jiffy’s revenue contribution will be minimal in this financial year. The company will implement its plans to increase Giphy’s revenue contribution by 2024.
Paul Hennessy, CEO of Shutterstock, said, ‘This deal marks a milestone in the evolution of Shutterstock as an end-to-end creative platform.’ This is the first time that a UK regulator has forced an American tech company to sell a purchased company.
Why did CMA stop the deal to acquire Giphy?
The CMA believed that if Meta acquired Jiffy, competition among social media platforms would decrease, which could harm advertisers. Additionally, Meta may block other social media platforms from accessing images from Jiffy.
Jiffy has the largest animated image collection
Jiffy is known to be the world’s largest animated image collection. It is used by different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. Users can also create gifs and stickers through Jiffy’s website.
Shutterstock stock image and video platform
Shutterstock is a stock image and video platform. Users can download royalty free images, video clips and music tracks from Shutterstock in the best quality. The Shutterstock website can be accessed in over 125 countries in 25 languages. According to the company, more than 2 lakh new images are uploaded to the Shutterstock website every year.
