Facebook is a world’s largest social networking giant, and there is no denying in that with a market valuation of $175 billion the company is on a shopping spree. The announcement of acquiring WhatApps has made it clear that Facebook is consolidating its position in Mobile messaging space, which the company thinks has a huge potential in coming future. Facebook made a formal announcement of this on its official blog on February 19, 2014. The total value of deal is $19 billion including $4 billion in cash, $12 billion worth facebook shares and another $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing of this deal.
Quick facts about WhatsApp
1. Rapidly growing real-time mobile messaging service
2. Started in 2009, by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, both former employees of Yahoo
3. Over 450 million people using the service each month
4. 70% of those people active on a given day
5. Handles more than 10 billion messages each day
6. 400 million photos are shared each day
7. Currently adding more than 1 million new registered users per day
For many the $19 Billion valuation seems exorbitant but being the top players in mobile messaging space has this kind of advantages. Convergence IT Services congratulates WhatsApp on this successful exit!
Here is the list of companies which has valuation less than WhatsApp.
| Sr.No | Company | Market Value ($Billion) |
| 1 | American Airlines | $12.3B |
| 2 | Akamai | $10.9B |
| 3 | Blackstone Group | $17.8B |
| 4 | Citrix Systems | $10.7B |
| 5 | Discovery Communicatons | $19.1B |
| 6 | Expedia | $10.2B |
| 7 | Harley-Davidson | $14.1B |
| 8 | Marriott International | $15.4B |
| 9 | Nielsen | $17.6B |
| 10 | Red Hat | $11.1B |
| 11 | Ryanair | $15.5B |
| 12 | Symantec | $14.4B |
| 13 | Southwest Airlines | $14.7B |
| 14 | The Carlyle Group | $11.1B |
| 15 | Mattel | $12B |
Source: http://linkd.in/1kZpgCx
