Is Whatsapp sold to Facebook

If you believed paying $1 billion for Instagram was insane, then this will blow your freakin' mind: Facebook introduced late Wednesday that it has obtained messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion. Yes, that's billion, with a "b." We'll give you a moment to select your jaw off the floor.

Is Whatsapp Sold To Facebook



Facebook Buys Whatsapp


The WhatsApp offer involves some $4 billion in cash money, and also another $12 billion well worth of Facebook stock up front-- that equals $16 billion, in case you do not have a calculator before you. WhatsApp's owners and also workers will certainly likewise get another $3 billion in Facebook shares over the next four years, bringing the total cost of the purchase to $19 billion. The offer has been validated in records submitted with the U.S. Stocks and Exchange Payment.

Facebook has consented to pay WhatsApp $1 billion in cash and also to provide $1 billion in Facebook supply as a breakup cost, if the SEC does not approve the bargain.

A glance at the numbers shows why Facebook spent billions on a 5-year-old text messaging choice. In a news release, Facebook revealed that WhatsApp has some 450 million active month-to-month customers, 70 percent of whom utilize the messaging service daily. At that price, states Facebook, the variety of WhatsApp messages comes close to the overall variety of SMS text messages sent out throughout the entire globe on an average day.

" WhatsApp is on a course to connect 1 billion individuals. The services that get to that turning point are all extremely beneficial," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Officer, stated in a declaration.

In a blog post, WhatsApp founder and Chief Executive Officer Jan Koum, who will certainly join Facebook's board of directors, said that the application "will certainly remain self-governing as well as operate individually" of Facebook, and that "nothing" will certainly change for customers. Koum additionally stated that the offer "will provide WhatsApp the versatility to expand and also broaden," while giving him, founder Brian Acton, et cetera of the What' sApp team "even more time to concentrate on building a communications service that's as quick, economical and individual as possible."

WhatsApp does not offer advertisements to individuals. Instead, the application bills a $1 annual fee after a year of free service. Koum says the app will certainly stay ad-free under Facebook's umbrella.

Jim Goetz of Sequoia Capitol, the investment firm that provided WhatsApp with $8 million in funding-- the only funding the company received, according to Crunchbase-- looked for to explain the $19 billion amount brought by WhatsApp in an article. He attributes the astonishing acquisition amount to the app's taking off active userbase, the business's "epic" group of just 32 designers, Koum's as well as Acton's dedication to "building a pure messaging experience," as well as the truth that WhatsApp invested specifically $0 on marketing.

" Those less knowledgeable about WhatsApp and also its wonderful product will certainly marvel at just how a young business could be so valuable," composed Goetz. "A number of those people will remain in the UNITED STATE since there's no other house expanded innovation firm that's so commonly liked overseas therefore under appreciated in the house. ... Today PayPal and also YouTube are both household names worldwide. Tomorrow the same will hold true for WhatsApp."

Soon after Facebook introduced the offer, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg claimed in a message on his Facebook Web page that WhatsApp will certainly assist satisfy his company's "mission ... to make the globe more open and also connected."

" WhatsApp will certainly enhance our existing conversation and also messaging solutions to provide new tools for our neighborhood," Zuckerberg wrote. "Facebook Messenger is extensively made use of for talking with your Facebook buddies, as well as WhatsApp for interacting with all of your get in touches with and small teams of individuals."

Zuckerberg included that the WhatsApp team "had every option in the world, so I'm delighted that they chose to collaborate with us." Facebook has actually allegedly been checking into getting WhatsApp because 2012, while Google was claimed to have actually used to buy the firm for $1 billion in April of last year-- a report that WhatsApp's head of company advancement Neeraj Aroratold later on shot down. Not that $1 billion would certainly have been enough, anyhow.