Facebook announced on Wednesday, 19th of February that it reached an agreement to buy popular mobile messaging application WhatsApp for an upfront total of $19 billion, according to a regulatory filing (Facebook purchasing WhatsApp for $16 billion in stock and cash. The deal is being cut for $12 billion in FB shares, $4 billion in cash and an additional $3 billion in RSUs for employee retention.
CEO and Co-founder of WhatsApp will join Facebook's Board of Directors but like instagram, WhatsApp will also continue to operate independently within Facebook. The chat service will maintain its existing offices and brand but it will take advantage of Facebook's "resources, scales and expertise."WhatsApp already has more than 450 million monthly active users that with competitors like Line and Facebook Messenger suddenly appear tiny by comparison.
