{"id":658,"date":"2014-02-20T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmir-today.net\/facebook-to-buy-messaging-network-whatsapp\/"},"modified":"2014-02-20T09:45:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T09:45:00","slug":"facebook-to-buy-messaging-network-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=658","title":{"rendered":"Facebook to buy messaging network WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"
Deal worth $16bn will give social-networking firm access to 450 million people who use the cross-platform mobile app.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

Facebook, the world’s biggest social-networking company, says it is buying the mobile messaging service WhatsApp in a deal worth $16bn.<\/p>\n

The purchase, announced on Wednesday, will leave WhatsApp with its own independent board.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp is a cross-platform mobile app which allows users to exchange messages without having to pay telecom charges.<\/p>\n

It is Facebook’s biggest acquisition and comes less than two years after Mark Zuckerberg’s firm raised $16bn in the richest technology-sector public stock offering.<\/p>\n

The purchase includes $12bn in Facebook shares and $4bn cash.<\/p>\n

It calls for an additional $3bn in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp founders and employees that will vest over four years.<\/p>\n

“The acquisition supports Facebook and WhatsApp’s shared mission to bring more connectivity and utility to the world by delivering core Internet services efficiently and affordably,” Facebook said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The WhasApp deal translates to roughly nine percent of Facebook’s market value and is bigger than any acquisition made by Google, Apple or Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Google’s biggest deal, Motorola Mobility, stood at $12.5bn, while Microsoft’s largest was Skype – which allows users to make voice and video calls over the internet – at $8.5bn. Apple, meanwhile, has not done a deal above $1bn.<\/p>\n

Separate service<\/p>\n

Facebook, which has more than 1.2 billion members, said it will keep WhatsApp as a separate service, just as it did with Instagram, which it bought for about $715.3m.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp has more than 450 million monthly active users. In comparison, Twitter had 241 million users at the end of 2013.<\/p>\n

“WhatsApp is on a path to connect one billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable,” Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve known [WhatsApp founder] Jan [Koum] for a long time and I’m excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected.”<\/p>\n

Koum, who joins Facebook’s board under the deal, said “WhatsApp’s extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide.”<\/p>\n

In a blog post, Koum said, “Almost five years ago we started WhatsApp with a simple mission: building a cool product used globally by everybody. Nothing else mattered to us.”<\/p>\n

The tie-up gives WhatsApp “the flexibility to grow and expand, while giving me, [co-founder] Brian [Acton], and the rest of our team more time to focus on building a communications service that’s as fast, affordable and personal as possible,” Koum said.<\/p>\n

Facebook reportedly sought to acquire another messaging firm, Snapchat, for $3bn last year.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deal worth $16bn will give social-networking firm access to 450 million people who use the cross-platform mobile app. Facebook, the world’s biggest social-networking company, says it is buying the mobile messaging service WhatsApp in a deal worth $16bn. The purchase, announced on Wednesday, will leave WhatsApp with its own independent board. WhatsApp is a cross-platform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}