201–210 of 831 posts
$16B for something I've never even heard of. I feel like I'm living under a pile of rocks.
The only reason I ended up using it is a European friend who wanted to stay in touch. This data is old, but it gives you a rough idea: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/global-messaging-market/mes... 7% penetration in the US, 16% in Canada, 84% in Germany, 97% in Spain.
Sequoia just landed a 5x return on their fund with this one deal. At a rough guess, they put in $8m for 15% of the company in 2011, valuing it at around $53m. A $16B sale is a 300x increase in value, so Sequoia's stake is worth $2.4bn. Their standard fund size is around $500m. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/16/us-sequoia-funds-i...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Destroy? There will be a host of new messaging startups created off the back of this, and suddenly the Snapchat valuation looks sane. Do one thing that Facebook does but better is the new gold rush. Sure, most of them will fail hard without raising a cent in revenue, but others will start to threaten to chip away at Facebook's market share.. Anecdata: I get a lot more messages on FB messenger than WhatsApp...
Whatsapp has virtually no market share in the US. In basically all markets outside of the US, however, they are dominating the messaging space. Text messages in major EU countries like Germany and France have been almost completely supplanted by WhatsApp.
...WhatsApp certainly isn't dominating in the Asian markets, you only have to look at WeChat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't feel bad; no one really uses them in the US (except us foreigners to communicate with friends and family abroad). They are the de-facto messaging service in the rest of the world (except for China).
im curious, what do americans use instead?
Damn. I know Whatsapp is a big deal -- when I was in HKG a few weeks back every advertisement was Phone Number and Whatsapp number (We're talking on-bench advertising) and on TV as well. Still, crazy.
Am I the only one upset with this? I don't use Facebook - haven't and never will - because I hate how I and all my data will become their product on registration. Sure, Whatsapp has its quirks being proprietary and all, but now, I am basically doomed. Whatsapp says they will stick to their core and stay independent, but I have 16 billion reasons to believe otherwise. The sad part is that due to Whatsapp, I can't esca…
For everyone saying this is a waste of money, consider the commentary around Instagram at $1B. Basically the world said that this was a horrible acquisition at the time, but in retrospect, buying Instagram was quite cheap. Buying your closest competitor for less than 15% of your market cap is usually a good idea. Fast forward to today. What'sapp is the dominant messaging application across the world. Carriers hate it…
This is confusing for me though.
1. WhatsApp prides on: No ads No games No gimmicks
And WhatsApp doesn't collect personal data.
Facebook is OPPOSITE of those attributes of WhatsApp.
Is it like bargaining in the suoq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souq) ?