Facebook Buys WhatsApp For $19 Billion

If all matters are resolved, this is the biggest acquisition of Facebook. It announced yesterday that it reached an agreement to buy WhatsApp, the most popular mobile messaging app, for $16 billion in cash and stock plus additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to the founders ( former Yahoo engineers Jan Koum & Brian Acton ) and employees.



In a statement, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, " WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are incredibly valuable. I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected."

How would this deal affect us? Not much. WhatsApp will continue to operate independently, just like what happened to Instagram when it was bought by Facebook. Furthermore, the founders have been firm on declining advertisements in its platform. Instead, it will continue with its $0.99 yearly subscription after the first year free use.

This is indeed a big risk for Facebook. $19 billion is a huge money. Is WhatsApp really worth that? In comparison, Instagram was bought for $1 billion in 2012 and Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for Skype in 2011.

I certainly hope that Facebook will not exploit the current set-up of WhatsApp. Currently, it is doing well unless of course they will introduce more useful features like voice call.

What do you think of this acquisition? Is WhatsApp worth $19 billion?

1 comment:

  1. thanks for sharing this information its really helps me and i am also share on this article how facebook going to use whats app data...

    http://www.1storiginal.com/whatsapp-to-share-your-personal-data-with-facebook/

    ReplyDelete