Social network giant Facebook has
bought instant messaging service WhatsApp for a wallet-busting $16 billion (£9.6bn).
The hugely popular phone app allows users to send messages using internet
connections, avoiding SMS charges. WhatsApp has 450m monthly users - 70 per
cent who use the app daily - and claims to register 1m new users every day.
It is free to use for the first 12
months, after which it costs $1 per year but will still save the user money on
texting charges. The deal is made up of $4bn (£2.4bn) in cash and $12bn
(£7.2bn) of Facebook shares. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive of
Facebook, said: "WhatsApp is on a path to connect one billion people.
"The services that reach that
milestone are all incredibly valuable." The WhatsApp brand will continue
and its headquarters will remain in Mountain View, California. Facebook
recently reported record revenues of $2.5bn (£1.5 billion) from 757 million
daily users. In 2012, Facebook bought photo sharing social media site Instagram
for $1b billion (£600m).
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