"I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook." In his official Facebook page, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces. So, the most widely used messaging app will be now a part of Facebook. WhatsApp has a 450 billion active users worldwide. WhatsApp Messenger being a cross-platform mobile messaging app
for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia allows to send text, video, images, audio files to other users in your contact list. It is the most popular messaging app among the smartphone users. Because of its brilliant features, it gained popularity among mobile device users in a short period of time.
According to Wikipedia, WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced on Twitter that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp "has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines."
In 19 February, 2014, Facebook announced acquiring the fast growing mobile messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion. This amount is more than the amount Facebook got in its IPO. WhatsApp's 450 million active users are being bought by Facebook for a more modest $42 each which is more than the $30 Facebook ogt in its IPO. Facebook will pay $4 billion in cash and the remaining $12 billion in Facebook shares and $3billion in restricted stock units (RSU).
One major fact behind the popularity of WhatsApp is because it is free of cost for the first year and it can be renewed for a minimal cost for another specified time period. Now, WhatsApp going to the hand of Facebook may employ new rules for its users. WhatsApp was founded in 2009 and currently it has fewer than 60 employees. Interesting point here is that Facebook co-founder Brian Acton was rejected a job by Facebook in 2009 after which he co-founded WhatsApp.
"WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone." Zuckerberg says in his post on his official Facebook page. So, Facebook users may expect some changes in the existing messaging technology employed by Facebook in recent future.
"WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone." Zuckerberg says in his post on his official Facebook page. So, Facebook users may expect some changes in the existing messaging technology employed by Facebook in recent future.
Post by Mark Zuckerberg.
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