Facebook Buying WhatsApp For $16 Billion

It’s a new corporate acquisition deal involving a messaging company and a social networking site. Facebook and WhatsApp has agreed to the former’s acquisition of the latter for $16 which will be paid in stocks valued at $12 billion and cash at $4 billion. In addition, there will be $3 billion worth of restricted stock units or RSUs to be made available to the employees and the founders of the instant messaging company.

WhatsApp was conceptualized by two former employees of Yahoo in 2009 and the service had 450 million active users when the deal was announced. 70 percent of this are known to be active on a daily basis which translates to 315 million users with a million more registering per day. The WhatsApp messenger is currently handling 19 billion messages sent and 34 billion messages received, uploading of 600 million photos and sending of 200 million voice and 100 million video messages, all on a daily basis.

This revelation was made through FB’s filing of a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The CEO of WhatsApp is set to join FB’s Board of Directors once the deal is approved by the companies’ governing bodies and the SEC. Despite the deal, WhatsApp will continue to provide messaging services to its users while Facebook contemplates on how to harness this new asset.