Agenda
• Acquisition detail
• Company detail
• Industry detail
• Reasons
• Benefits
• Concerns
Acquisition details
• Date : 18th February 2014
• Acquirer company : Facebook inc
• Acquiree company : WhatsApp inc
• Acquisition Highlights
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Acquisition amount : $19 billion
Separate operation, just like Instagram
Jan Koum to join FB’s BOD
Acquirer/Acquiree details
Facebook
WhatsApp
Founded
Feb 2004
Feb 2009
Founder
Mark Zuckerberg, etc.
Jan Koum, Brian Acton
Employee
9199
55
Services
Social Networking
Instant Messaging
Active Users (by Dec 2014)
1.39 billion
700 million
Vision/mission
make the world more open and connected
make WhatsApp available to everyone in the world
WhatsApp’s Rapid Growth years • not ruining the user-experience with advertisements
• It has 450 million monthly active users (MAU)
• 72% of the MAUs are daily active users (DAU) – industry standard is about 20%
• 1 million users join WhatsApp daily in first 4
Industry detail
• Fragmented global market
• FB’s Messenger is 1st only in US market
• WhatsApp is the leading app in South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia and second to FB messenger in U.S.
• 16-24 age group
Reasons for acquisition
Why is FB spending so much money?
● “WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable.” - Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook CEO
● Tech firms fighting to build mobile businesses
○ FB expanding to Europe, Latin America, and Asia
○ FB attempting to address generational shift in way we connect (mobile) and continue to attract younger audiences
● FB using WhatsApp as a profitable data source for core advertising business
● “The right strategy is to focus on connecting the people before aggressively turning them into businesses.” Mark Zuckerburg
