WhatsApp, the popular messaging service, was sold to Facebook for an eye-popping $19 billion in 2014. The sale was one of the largest ever made in the technology industry and it generated a lot of headlines around the world.
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, two former Yahoo! employees who wanted to create a messaging platform that would be easy to use and accessible to everyone. The app quickly became popular with users due to its simplicity and ease of use.
At the time of the sale, WhatsApp had over 450 million active users who were sending over 11 billion messages per day. This popularity made it an attractive acquisition Target for Facebook, which had been looking for a way to increase its user base and expand its reach into mobile messaging. By buying WhatsApp, Facebook was able to gain access to a large user base that it could monetize through ads or other services.
The astronomical price tag that Facebook paid for WhatsApp was met with some skepticism from analysts who questioned whether it was worth such a high price. However, since then, WhatsApp’s user base has grown significantly and its popularity continues to increase around the world. This has led many analysts to believe that Facebook got a good deal with its purchase of WhatsApp.
Conclusion:
WhatsApp was sold to Facebook in 2014 for an impressive sum of $19 billion, making it one of the largest tech acquisitions ever made. Although some analysts were skeptical about this high price tag at the time, it is now clear that this purchase has been extremely beneficial for both companies due to WhatsApp’s rapid growth in popularity and user base since then.