Why Facebook acquired WhatsApp?

News are hot, forums are overwhelmed with discussion from last couple of weeks since giant social site Facebook has acquired Whatspp, which itself is one of the largest private social app. Acquisition, worth 19 billion dollar, out of which 16 billion dollar is upfront and 3 billion dollar in future, is being referred as one of the largest acquisition by Facebook. Facebook has acquired 45 apps till now including Whatsapp but Whatsapp acquisition has caught the attention of all. Facebook decision to acquire Whatsapp has spawned a whole lot of criticism and some amount of praise as well. Questions are swimming in heads of people why Facebook acquired Whatsapp?

Facebook official statement about acquisition is that they acquired Whatsapp to make the world more open and connected, which seems to become true as per the current facts. Mark Zuckerberg not only fulfills his ambitions to change the world but also thinks right on business side.

Facebook grew as world’s leading social network for sharing everything you know with everyone and now it owns the world’s largest private social network while Facebook slaved away 1.25 billion consumers around the world, its utility Whatsapp has replaced an essential utility for SMS, being used by 450 million people. Facebook being largest social website is used all over the globe but still there are many countries like Switzerland, Mexico, Spain where Facebook is not used hence its messenger also is of no use. Facebook projected to fill these communication pipelines using the Whatsapp. This will make Facebook the hottest and dominant mobile app in the world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself stated “Whatsapp has higher engagement than Facebook”.

Acquisition of Facebook is being considered as a good investment by investors. “It’s a big opportunity to capture the communication market”, says the investors. 19 billion dollar payment is a signal to investors that they no longer have to worry about the company’s future revenue stream. One must realize that gone are the days when Facebook was a young immature startup. Still many of the investors consider that the amount paid for the acquisition is too big.

Facebook and its utility will make the largest app for sharing photos and exchanging SMS around the world. Kara Swisher referred Facebook as Disney. She says It may not be able to own every popular service but it is becoming influential by acquiring different tools. Earlier Instagram and now Whatsapp have completed the picture.

Earlier to recent acquisition, Facebook was so desperate to acquire any messaging app as the messaging apps have been the biggest threat to Facebook hegemony over social communication. Hence Whatsapp acquisition releases those fears of Facebook.

Still Facebook and Whatsapp has not defined polices that how will they make money. As per Zuckerberg, Whatsapp team will remain stay in their office and later they will jointly think on expanding business.