The mega
social media giant has announced the acquisition of messaging app Whatsapp for
a price of $19 billion. $4 billion will be paid in cash, $16 billion in
Facebook shares and $3 billion in vesting restricted stock units.
Facebook has
reiterated that WhatsApp will continue to operate independently without any
interruption from Facebook and WhatsApp CEO, Jan Koum will join Facebook’s
board of directors.
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| Facebook hooks WhatsApp. Image: techcrunch |
“WhatsApp is
on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone
are all incredibly valuable,” said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. “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.”
“WhatsApp’s
extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple,
powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide. We’re excited and
honored to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our products
to more people around the world.” WhatsApp co-founder and CEO, Jan Koum said.
WhatsApp has
been growing in leaps and bounds since last year and the most popular messaging
app now has 450 million monthly active users, up from 400 million in December,
2013.
When you
consider that WhatsApp now has 350 million daily users while Facebook has 556
million mobile daily active users, then you see that it is an important
acquisition for Facebook.
WhatsApp
message volume is growing so rapidly that it will soon exceed global telecom
SMS volume and it also add more than one million registered users in a day.
It is very
important that Facebook is not looking to interrupt WhatsApp services, the way
it did when it acquired Instagram. It is yet unknown what will be the fate of
Facebook Messenger with the acquisition of a direct rival: WhatsApp.
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Facebook acquires Whatsapp for $19 billion