Why Did Facebook Buy WhatsApp?

In February 2014, Facebook announced that it had acquired WhatsApp, the popular mobile messaging service, for a whopping $19 billion. The acquisition was one of the most expensive in history and left many people asking why Facebook would pay so much for a single company.

The answer lies in WhatsApp’s incredible growth rate.

In just four years, the company had achieved over 450 million monthly active users and 70 million daily active users. That’s more than double the number of total Facebook users at the time, and it was only growing faster. With such an impressive user base, WhatsApp had become one of the most popular and widely used messaging services in the world.

Furthermore, WhatsApp was quickly gaining traction in markets that Facebook had yet to penetrate. By buying WhatsApp, Facebook could instantly become a major player in these emerging markets and expand its reach into new and potentially lucrative areas. It could also leverage its own infrastructure to grow WhatsApp even faster than before.

Finally, WhatsApp posed a threat to Facebook’s existing messaging services such as Messenger and Instagram Direct. Acquiring the company allowed Facebook to eliminate this threat by integrating its messaging platforms into one unified system under its control.

Conclusion:

Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp was driven by a desire to gain access to new markets as well as consolidate their own messaging services into one unified platform. The immense user base of 450 million monthly active users was also a major factor in why they chose to purchase the company for such an exorbitant sum – they knew they were getting access to an incredibly valuable asset that could be leveraged to grow their business even further.