Facebook announced on Wednesday ( 19 ) that will buy the instant messaging service WhatsApp for $ 16 billion . The acquisition , the largest ever made by the company will be realized with $ 4 billion in cash and $ 12 billion in shares of social network .
The agreement may reach $ 19 billion , since it provides an additional $ 3 billion in shares which may be acquired by the founders and employees of WhatsApp in the next four years.
The action of Facebook ended the trading session in New York , up 1.13 % , trading at U.S. $ 68.06 . After the announcement , according to Bloomberg , the role fell 5.7 % in electronic trading , going to U.S. $ 64.18 . The forecast is for lower open tomorrow .
The statement indicates that the business WhatsApp is used by 450 million people per month -70 % of them daily and registers 1 million new users per day . According to Facebook , which says it has 1.23 billion users worldwide , the service will operate independently.
The last major acquisition of Facebook was the social network of photography Instagram , in April 2012 , for $ 1 billion .
" WhatsApp is about to connect 1 billion people . Services that reach this milestone are all incredibly valuable ," said Mark Zuckerberg , founder and chief executive of Facebook , the official announcement of the acquisition .
Zuckerberg also wrote on his page on the social network that WhatsApp will complement existing services and chat message from Facebook .
"Facebook Messenger is widely used to chat with Facebook friends , and WhatsApp to communicate with all your contacts and with small groups of people . Because WhatsApp Messenger and serve as different and important uses , we will continue to invest in both , "posted .
Jan Koum , co-founder and chief executive of WhatsApp , stated on the official company blog that there will be " ads interrupting your communication " after purchasing the app through Facebook .
Currently , the application generates revenue by charging for installation on iPhone ($ 0.99 ) , and users of Android ( Google OS ) , with annual nature of $ 0.99 after the first year .
Founded in 2009 by two former employees of Yahoo! , WhatsApp currently has a staff of 55 people .
Another popular messaging app in the world, Viber , was bought last week . The Rakuten , company e -commerce and Japanese internet , paid $ 900 million .
The director and co-founder of the Japanese company , Hiroshi Mikitani , said at the time that " messaging applications are taking over the world ."
SMS x APPs
The new purchase comes amid fighting Facebook to keep youngsters on the basis of their users, who increasingly become fans of messaging services.
Besides WhatsApp, the Snapchat, which sends messages that are destroyed seconds after read, was the target of the social network late last year. The chief executive of the service, Evan Spiegel, rejected a proposed $ 3 billion.
The increased use of applications of the type concerned telecom operators in the world, threatening the revenue with SMS service.
According to a study from research firm Strategy Analytics, released in January, revenue from messages of global operators fell for the first time last year, reaching $ 104 billion, down 4% compared to 2012. The forecast is for a decline of 20% by 2017.
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