Why Did Facebook Buy Whatsapp

If you assumed paying $1 billion for Instagram was crazy, then this will certainly blow your freakin' mind: Facebook announced late Wednesday that it has acquired messaging application WhatsApp for $19 billion. Yes, that's billion, with a "b." We'll offer you a moment to pick your jaw off the floor.

Why Did Facebook Buy Whatsapp



Facebook Buys Whatsapp


The WhatsApp deal entails some $4 billion in cash money, as well as one more $12 billion well worth of Facebook stock up front-- that equals $16 billion, in case you don't have a calculator before you. WhatsApp's owners and workers will also obtain one more $3 billion in Facebook shares over the next four years, bringing the overall expense of the purchase to $19 billion. The deal has been verified in files filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Facebook has actually accepted pay WhatsApp $1 billion in cash money as well as to issue $1 billion in Facebook supply as a break up cost, if the SEC does not authorize the offer.

A peek at the numbers shows why Facebook spent billions on a 5-year-old message messaging option. In a press release, Facebook revealed that WhatsApp has some 450 million energetic month-to-month users, 70 percent of whom utilize the messaging service daily. At that rate, claims Facebook, the number of WhatsApp messages comes close to the complete number of SMS sms message sent out across the whole globe on an ordinary day.

" WhatsApp is on a course to connect 1 billion individuals. The solutions that get to that turning point are all unbelievably useful," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder as well as CEO, claimed in a statement.

In a post, WhatsApp co-founder and also CEO Jan Koum, that will sign up with Facebook's board of directors, stated that the application "will continue to be independent and also run individually" of Facebook, and that "absolutely nothing" will certainly transform for individuals. Koum additionally stated that the bargain "will offer WhatsApp the adaptability to grow and also expand," while giving him, founder Brian Acton, and the rest of the What' sApp group "even more time to focus on constructing an interactions service that's as quick, inexpensive and also personal as feasible."

WhatsApp does not offer ads to users. Rather, the application charges a $1 annual charge after a year of complimentary service. Koum states the application will certainly stay ad-free under Facebook's umbrella.

Jim Goetz of Sequoia Capitol, the investment firm that gave WhatsApp with $8 million in funding-- the only financing the firm got, according to Crunchbase-- sought to clarify the $19 billion sum fetched by WhatsApp in a post. He connects the astonishing acquisition total up to the application's exploding energetic userbase, the business's "famous" group of just 32 designers, Koum's and Acton's commitment to "constructing a pure messaging experience," and the truth that WhatsApp spent precisely $0 on marketing.

" Those less acquainted with WhatsApp and also its wonderful product will admire exactly how a young firm could be so important," composed Goetz. "Much of those individuals will be in the U.S. because there's no other house grown technology company that's so extensively loved abroad therefore under appreciated at home. ... Today PayPal and YouTube are both household names all over the world. Tomorrow the exact same will certainly hold true for WhatsApp."

Shortly after Facebook announced the deal, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on his Facebook Web page that WhatsApp will certainly assist accomplish his business's "objective ... to make the world much more open and also linked."

" WhatsApp will match our existing chat as well as messaging solutions to offer new tools for our area," Zuckerberg composed. "Facebook Carrier is widely used for chatting with your Facebook buddies, and also WhatsApp for connecting with every one of your calls as well as tiny groups of individuals."

Zuckerberg added that the WhatsApp group "had every choice worldwide, so I'm thrilled that they picked to work with us." Facebook has allegedly been looking into acquiring WhatsApp since 2012, while Google was said to have offered to get the firm for $1 billion in April of in 2014-- a report that WhatsApp's head of business development Neeraj Aroratold later refuted. Not that $1 billion would certainly have sufficed, anyway.