{{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>\n
{Agencies}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{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 mobile app which allows users to exchange messages without having to pay telecom charges. It is Facebook’s biggest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050454,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12646.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12646"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12646"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}