121–130 of 831 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they're buying it per current user. It's either about paying for future users (granted, triple the user base and it's still a lot) or a game of defense against a potential competitor. They bought the photo company at what seemed an outrageous amount in part to co-opt a competitor. In the end it was profitable. They alter their feed to look more Twitter-like, encouraging people to avoid the competitor. I…
> triple the user base and it's still a lot WhatsApp current has 430M monthly active users[0], compared with FaceBook's 1.2B[1] monthly active users. Tripling their userbase would make them the same size FaceBook is itself. ED: Corrected as child comments pointed out. [0]: http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2013/12/400-million-stori... [1]: http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821954
Don't get me wrong - WhatsApp is a great product and very easy to use on top of that (using phone number as id is a great idea to onboard users in a very intuitive way). But I fail to see where this valuation is coming from.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or facebook is trying to trivialize and destroy the startup market.
the startup market of other messenger apps? The ones that are around are already big and profitable (KakaoTalk, LINE etc).
Some interesting numbers: WhatsApp raised only $8 million (from Sequoia in 2011 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/whatsapp ). 19B sale price is about 10% of Facebook's 173B valuation. At 400 million, WhatsApp has more users than, the world's third most populous country , the United States has residents.
Assuming Sequoia took that for 20% of the company (fairly standard), they just made $3.2bn. For every $1 they invested in WhatsApp, they made $400 back. However people feel about the VC game, 400x IRR are why so many people play.
400,000,000 active users [0] 16,000,000,000 USD ---- $40 per user That's an incredible cost. We can assume Facebook is paying for the userbase, the app itself and it's infrastructure would basically run itself. It's less appealing when you realise that there's probably a miniscule fraction of WhatsApp users that don't have a Facebook account. > WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can contin…
FB market cap ~170B
.75B users (EDIT: originally quoted FB 1.2B users, but that is the total count and WhatsApp quotes active users)
--> market cap implies roughly $225 per active user.
In that light, 40/AU is cheap. Even if you assume 50% overlap, 80/AU is still a deal compared to how the market values FB users
"... and WhatsApp’s core messaging product and Facebook’s existing Messenger app will continue to operate as standalone applications."
And chatting my friends on WhatsApp using Facebook Messenger [on the web] would be a killer feature for me, I feel the need for a web interface/desktop app every time I receive a message on WhatsApp and my phone is away.
[0] http://newsroom.fb.com/News/805/Facebook-to-Acquire-WhatsApp