Facebook has agreed to acquire WhatsApp for all of $16billion.
According to a statement by founder Mark Zuckerberg, the social media giant will spend $4 billion in cash and $12 billion in Facebook stock to acquire the messaging app, 16 times more than what they paid for picture sharing site Instagram.
WhatsApp is quite similar to other messaging apps like iMessage and Blackberry Messenger but it’s by far the most popular, with 450 million active users.
The app runs on almost all devices and operating systems for phones and tablets.
It’s a no brainer figuring why Mark Zuckerberg made the heavy purchase.
Peter Pachal of Mashable.com explains that ‘everyone with a stake in mobile — from phone manufacturers to chip makers — is targeting those markets, desperate to get a piece of the pie as customers in Asia, Africa and South America snap up smartphones’.
WhatsApp Inc. was founded in 2009 by American Brian Acton and Ukrainian Jan Koum (also the CEO), both former employees of Yahoo!