On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced on his own Facebook page that his company had just acquired popular mobile app WhatsApp for $16 billion, or $19 billion, depending on who you ask. The $3 billion is dependent on whether you want to include restricted stock that will be granted to the founders, employees, and the one lone investor of WhatsApp, over four years into the buying price. 
Image: WhatsApp
What exactly is WhatsApp and why is it worth enough to own 13 NFL teams or make 300 people as rich as Beyonce? Unlike Snapchat, who turned down $3 billion(not so surprising now) from Facebook last November, WhatsApp works on the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia, where as Snapchat only works on iOS and Android devices. That means anyone with an internet connection and a WhatsApp mobile app installed on their phone can exchange SMS texts messages with another person, or a group of people, so long as they, too, have an internet connection and the WhatsApp software installed. Also, Snapchat is free while WhatsApp gives a free first year trial version before charging $1 for each year after. And with WhatsApp in it’s fourth year of operations and approaching 1 billion users according to Zuckerberg, that is a huge revenue stream without the ad revenue that Facebook is known for implementing.
So what changes will WhatsApp users face after this record acquisition? According to co-founder Jan Koum: nothing.
Posted on the WhatsApp blog, Koum explains the company’s mission to its users after being acquired:
“WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no 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.”
So when the company’s line entails words like autonomous and independent, this acquisition would only fuel WhatsApp’s growth even more. The emerging markets into Europe and Asia means Facebook is moving towards global expansion and is setting up the framework for its worldwide takeover. 450 million active users per day is too much of a threat to Facebook that they had to go on the offensive or get left in the dust. Moore’s law states that computer hardware doubles in transistors every year. It seems like Zuckerberg’s law states that Facebook will try and acquire which ever small startup threatens their growth.
Image: Techcrunch
The messaging app market just got a whole lot smaller thanks to Facebook’s new acquisition. In today’s competitive tech and social media market system, the new saying is “If you can’t beat them, buy them.”
Sci-Tec 