Facebook Acquires WhatsApp Messaging App

Facebook has officially acquired popular messaging platform WhatsApp, spending a reported $19 billion to claim ownership of the service.

According to a report in Forbes, “Certainly the news of the week and a huge acquisition [of WhatsApp by Facebook is] one which is important for Facebook to both continue its growth, but also continue to gather the valuable data it needs to deliver monetizable services to its customers.

“The deal is pending regulatory approval and, should it not get across the line, Facebook will pay WhatsApp $1B in cash and $1B in shares.

“It’s a significant amount of Facebook’s total valuation, but looked at on a macro level, it allows Facebook to extend its franchise far beyond its primary site, and also gives it an interesting play into developing markets.

“WhatsApp has grown massively since its inception – in 2013, its users sent 18 billion messages and received 36 billion in return – a massive number that is fully three times the previous year’s metrics.

“But massive growth and a defensible position are two different things – WhatsApp had rivals, from Apple, Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter. It also had the lofty ambition of not pushing advertising onto its users.

“Facebook hasn’t yet commented about what this means for WhatsApp and, more importantly, how they’re leverage those massive numbers to deliver value back to the company. One assumes that CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes WhatsApp has the scale to have created a real degree of stickiness and hence be somewhat insulated from any potential customer revolt that might come from a move towards advertising on the platform.

“Then again users won’t exactly like their conversations being mined to deliver advertising to their Facebook profiles either.”

#Facebook #SocialMedia

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