Facebook’s Whatsapp acquisition - what do you think of it?

The hot topic last week was Facebook announcing it had bought the thriving mobile messaging app, Whatsapp. Not just that, but also the fact it was bought for $19 billion (in cash and stock)!

There has been a lot of talk as to why Facebook invested so much into the company. Are they going to be using it as another ad vehicle? Is it going to be used as a way of accessing more of our personal information i.e. 450 million phone numbers!? Or was it purely to get rid of one of its biggest competitors?

Google had previously tried to buy Whatsapp for $10 billion…Facebook’s deal dwarfs Google’s offer as well as other high-profile tech acquisitions which you can see in the Statista chart below.

In April 2013, Whatsapp had reached 200 million users. Today, not even a year later, it is said to have 450 million users – that’s over double their user count in less than a year! Pretty impressive, even for Facebook’s standards; it took Facebook over two years to get to where Whatsapp is now.

Nonetheless, this new investment hasn’t only benefited Facebook and Whatsapp; there has been a rise in shares for companies such as Kik (another instant messaging service) and even Blackberry! Whereas Facebook shares had dropped by 5%.

It’s been almost a week since this acquisition and Whatsapp has already crashed. Over the weekend, Whatsapp users faced “server issues” which were resolved after four hours – plenty of time for users to complain via Twitter and receive an apology from Whatsapp’s Twitter account. Not a good start! Having said that, even though nothing has been confirmed, this could just mean they acquired a surge of new users.

We want to know your opinion – what do you think the real reason behind Facebook investing billions into Whatsapp is?