Here is the big news, Facebook has bought the most popular mobile messenger the WhatsApp. Facebook announced that it will be acquiring WhatsApp for total of $16 billion in cash and stock. WhatsApp will maintain its brand and existing offices, but it will take advantage of Facebook’s “expertise, resources and scale”. WhatsApp has currently more than 350 million active users, combined with Facebook messenger, other competitor messenger apps like Line and Viber appears tiny.
Here are the words from WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum:
“Doing this will give WhatsApp the flexibility to grow and expand, while giving me, Brian, and the rest of our team more time to focus on building a communications service that’s as fast, affordable and personal as possible,” “The users don’t need to worry about ads “interrupting your communication.” “There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product,”
And here are some of the words of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg:
“I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook.”
“Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day.””WhatsApp will continue to operate independently within Facebook. The product roadmap will remain unchanged and the team is going to stay in Mountain View. Over the next few years, we’re going to work hard to help WhatsApp grow and connect the whole world. We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts forInternet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone. “”Jan and the WhatsApp team have done some amazing work to connect almost half a billion people. I can’t wait for them to join Facebook and help us connect the rest of the world.”
We are excited to see what this new acquisition brings to the market. It will definitely going to benefit both the social site Facebook and messaging app WhatsApp.
Source: Facebook News Room | WhatsApp Blog | Invester Facebook