Facebook To Acquire Whatsapp for $19 Billion - The Hottest Acquisition This Season

The social media world is abuzz with the news of Facebook acquiring Whatsapp for humongous $19 billion! The news comes close to the heels of Viber's acquisition for $900 million a few days back.

This acquisition merges the two giants of social media and mobile messaging. Under the acquisition terms, Whatsapp is being acquired for $4 billion in cash, $3 billion in RSUs and $12 billion in stock options which will be paid over the coming 4 years.

Also, the cofounder & CEO of Whatsapp, Jan Koum will be joining the board of directors at Facebook Inc.

WhatsApp has built a leading and rapidly growing real-time mobile messaging service, with over 450 million people using the service each month and 70% of those people are active on a given day. Whatsapp's messaging volume is approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume; and it has been currently adding more than 1 million new registered users per day.

The acquisition is much similar to that of Instagram; so Whatsapp will continue to operate independent of Facebook.com. So all the 450 million members of Whatsapp can rest assured; you won't be migrated to Facebook Messenger. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication, assured Jan Koum in a blog post. 

Facebook has been trying very hard to conquer the mobile world. Although the news led to a drop in Facebook's stock prices, it might be just a momentary reaction. The acquisition will definitely boost Facebook's aspirations to become a major mobile player.