Facebook acquires WhatsApp for $19 billion, WhatsApp to operate independently

Facebook has made another huge purchase that makes its purchase of Instagram look insignificant. Instagram was purchased for a hefty $1 billion, which many thought was a crazy amount for a photo-sharing app. It seems to have worked out well for Facebook, thought. This time around, Facebook has purchased WhatsApp Messenger for a massive $16 billion dollars as well as an additional $3 billion in restricted stock.

For those worried about the state of WhatsApp, Facebook says that the company will operate independently. The CEO of WhatsApp is even joining the Facebook board of directors, so WhatsApp isn’t losing anything significant in this acquisition.

WhatsApp is a huge service at the moment, with 450 million people using it every month and a steady growth of 1 million new users per day. Still, $16 billion is still an incredible amount of money. Of that total, $4 billion will be in cash, while the other $12 billion will consist of Facebook shares. In the event of that the deal is cancelled, Facebook will pay WhatsApp $1 billion in cash and $1 billion worth of stock.

We’ll see what Facebook decides to do with WhatsApp . With Facebook already having put significant work into its own messenger system, it’ll be interesting to see how the two companies eventually integrate. Will Facebook Messenger be powered by WhatsApp, or the other way around? We’re excited to see how this progresses and to learn whether or not that $19 billion will be worth it.

What are your thoughts on the acquisition? Leave a comment!

source: androidandme