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Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

techcrunch.com

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Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#131

Post by pitchups »

nwh wrote: post #60

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…

Pretty amazing that this is precisely what Microsoft paid for Hotmail in 1998 : $400 million for 10 million users = $40 / User. [1] The parallels are striking : Whatsapp is to messaging today what Hotmail was to messaging in the late '90s.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-206717.html

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#132

Post by huskyr »

Facebook suddenly acquired the world's (if we exclude the US and China) most popular messaging service. I communicate with this app with all my friends, and share stuff that i have no intention of ever putting on Facebook. Everything that once seemed 'private' is now in the hands of a website that forces it users to share as much as possible with marketeers and advertising companies. It's gonna be one tough mission for FB to convince WhatsApp users they're not gonna be playing around with their data.

If there's one moment to launch an email-like distributed protocol and app for instant messaging (and somehow convince all my friends to use it), i guess it's now.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#133

Post by smtddr »

gamegoblin wrote: post #11

That is a LOT of money. That being said, I use WhatsApp every day to chat with my friends around the world and it's really excellent. I know it's used a lot in other parts of the world even more, so I doubt this purchase is focused on US markets. It seems that every one of my Arab friends uses WhatsApp to talk to their families back home (and they use it at home, too). I don't know about other regions.

Standard with all the cool people in Nigeria.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#134

Post by k-mcgrady »

Even though at the time it seemed ridiculous I could understand paying $1bn for Instagram. Photos is Facebook's most used product and Instagram was stealing users photos on mobile.

$16bn for WhatsApp I just can't understand. Facebook has a brilliant messaging app. Lots of people use it - even people who use WhatsApp continue to use Facebook Messenger.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#136

Post by pisarzp »

This is just ridiculous. As per their latest financial statement, $16B is $B more then they have in the bank. Part of that is stock, but still...

On top of that, it's 8 times more then their 2013 net income!

People say it's defensive play, but to me it looks like overly aggressive play with huge risk and very little potential. Facebook already has huge market share with their messaging platform, and they really don't need this that badly.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#140

Post by smackfu »

nwh wrote: post #60

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…

Twitter:

  241,000,000 active users
  30,230,000,000 USD market cap
  ----
  $125 per user
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