If you thought buying Instagram for one billion was nuts, just wait until you hear about the latest Facebook acquisition. Facebook wants to buy the well known instant messaging app WhatsApp for - sit down for a moment - $16 billion dollars (and some additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees).
A deal that apparently was finalized during Valentine's dinner and that will make it the most expensive dinner ever, in the history of our planet!
No one can really explain why FB has paid so much money for a messaging app, but WhatsApp is a serious case of success. In just a little over 4 years, this app has gathered millions and millions of users. Every month over 450 millions people use it, 70% of which use it daily. The service processes over 50 billion messages per day, and let's not forget the company has just 32 engineers working there - and never spent a single dime in marketing.
Facebook says WhatsApp will stay as an independent product "for the most part", but it will be interesting to watch what changes will be done to a service that always promise to keep it's users private and safe (no ads, no stored messages on servers - they're deleted as soon as they're delivered, etc.) now that it will be owned by a company that wants to know as much as possible of each and every user.
... And even if the deal isn't approved... WhatsApp will still get $2 billions! How about that for a good deal?
[via Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, WhatsApp]
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