The messaging app is hugely popular overseas, with over 450m users. Facebook just bought the only app that could truly call itself a Facebook killer.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / Reuters
Facebook will acquire WhatsApp for about $19 billion, according to the company. This is an objectively enormous amount of money, and far more than Facebook offered for Snapchat. But WhatsApp is — or was — arguably the largest known threat to Facebook. It was one of the only services that could plausibly claim to be cannibalizing Facebook on a large scale, and one of a small few that pose it an existential threat.
It claimed, as of December, to have nearly half as many users as Facebook. This alone would have been enough to get Facebook's attention, but Facebook, going into 2014, has openly declared itself a mobile company (and by extension, a messaging company). Its future depends on its apps, which include Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Facebook Home and Instagram — all of which compete directly with WhatsApp.
Facebook reported in January that it had 945 million monthly mobile users, who use the app primary to check News Feed and message each other; WhatsApp currently claims over 450m monthly active users, who chat with each other, set statuses, set up group chats, send photos and videos and share voice notes.
It's a primitive-looking app — maybe even ugly — and it contains no ads. It associates with your phone number and circumvents texting charges; it only takes a few friends to join before its crude, simple appeal is obvious.
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