Some hours ago the internet giant Facebook announced that is buying the messaging application startup WhatsApp for an amount of $19 Billion, in detail $12 billion in stock and $4 billion in cash and, the app’s founders and employees (55 in all) will be granted restricted stock worth $3 billion.
For sure WhatApp has experienced an incredible success in the last few years , thinking about its capability to penetrate the market as in can see in the following figures from TechCrunch that shows the WhatsApp growth in terms of numbers of account during the first 4 years compared to other relevant cases.
Of course, I would emphasize that the graph cannot explain that WhasApp had easier conditions than the other members of the figure because, and it is not a second order reason, it has been delivered in 2009 against e.g. Skype in 2003 and Gmail beta in 2004, and in web environment 6 years is a geological period. Anyway is for sure the most important instant messaging service so far and its acquisition in some way confirm the decline of the Facebook Messenger, in some born with the mandate to compete to Whatsapp.
At the moment Facebook declares that “continue to operate independently and retain its brand”, but it is very interesting to see what will happen in the future, some approach are possible:
1. FB leaves WhatsApp as it is with the main target to gain the North American Market, note that Zuckerberg says: “”WhatsApp is on a path to connect one billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable” […] “doesn’t get as much attention in the US as it deserves because its community started off growing in Europe, India and Latin America”, so the first approach could be increase the market share.
2. A deep integration with FB, and this risky approach is opened to a wide kaleidoscope of alternatives and possible successes and failures.
If the approach 1 will chosen, I hope that will be better than the MS-Skype one, that at the moment didn’t offered too much added value respect to period before acquisition. For sure, always in the approach 1, the main constraint will be the reaction from the Mobile Operators that for sure don’t see under a good light a service that is capable, and in some Countries is already done, to overcome the traditional SMS messages.
At the end, I would say that such operation from a side is good for FB (for WhatApp owners for sure!) but probably the sum spent is too much and it is an hard bet, but it’s the Market, baby!
HTGadgets 