According to sources, Facebook Inc will buy fast growing mobile messaging startup Whatsapp for $19 billion in cash and stock, as the world's largest social network looks for ways to boost its popularity, especially among a younger crowd. Sources have stated that the acquisition of the hot messaging service with more than 450 million users around the world stunned many Silicon Valley observers with its lofty price tag.
But it underscores Face book’s determination to win the market for messaging, an indispensable utility in a mobile era. Meanwhile, by combining text messaging and social networking, messaging apps provide a quick way for Smartphone users to trade everything from brief texts to flirtatious pictures to YouTube clips bypassing the need to pay wireless carriers for messaging services.
Furthermore, it helps Facebook tap teens who will eschew the mainstream social networks and prefer Wats’app and rivals such as Line and We Chat, which have exploded in size as mobile messaging takes off. Currently, Whatsapp is adding about a million users per day, Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on his page on Wednesday. Moreover, Smartphone based messaging apps are now sweeping across North America, Asia and Europe.
