Messaging app WhatsApp was bought by Facebook And when you’re facing the prospect of a 5 year old company being acquired for $19 billion, can you really blame founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum? Probably not.
The thing is that it’s just insane the amount of money being tabled for a messaging app. And can Facebook recoup their investment in WhatsApp? The social media giant announced they will keep it independent, and with no advertisements scheduled to appear. Yet, the question of the day is: Where’s the money going to come from?
WhatsApp is available on a host of mobile operating systems, which includes iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Nokia S40 and Nokia S60 – making it very popular among users in emerging markets which appears to be Facebook’s play here. In fact TechCrunch cited a survey today by Jana Mobile that says people were 12X to 64X more likely to say WhatsApp is their most used messaging app, compared to Facebook.
However it’s no secret that the social network has seen a flood of teens abandoning Facebook for simpler social networks. A study found they’re heading to messaging and photo sharing apps like WeChat, Snapchat and Instagram. Meaning Facebook’s latest move into mobile could be to strengthen its presence amongst teens. After all Facebook’s business model is advertising and collecting data on its users for advertisers, and key insights on a younger audience could to be a gold mine for Facebook by improving its ad offering
Nevertheless let’s take a look at some key facts about WhatsApp I gathered today, some of which might shed some light into why Facebook decided it was worth $19 billion.
