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Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for 16 Billion

posted by Dopefish on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-will-this-darn-bubble-pop-already? dept.

lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.

Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.

WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.

I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by EventH0rizon on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:44AM

    by EventH0rizon (936) on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:44AM (#3323) Journal

    > These purchases are symptoms of a bubble

    Quite possibly. Or a more sobering thought, since *we* are the product from Facebook's point of view, they are betting that their near-monopoly on our graph data is worth this insane sort of money in the near future.

    In a way, I hope you're right, I hope it is a bubble.

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