Google's next billion dollar acquisition: WhatsApp! Rumor or truth?




Google's next billion dollar acquisition: WhatsApp! Rumor or truth?


Founded in the heart of Silicon Valley in 2009, WhatsApp is today, without any doubt, one of the most famous mobile application (downloaded by over 100 million Android users alone since its debut... not too bad, right!). Like it or not, especially the (ring)tone on Android phones that you can hear all around you (and drives you sometimes really crazy!), this cross platform messaging app has almost (totally) killed the sms industry.


Some rumors say that Google and WhatsApp have been in talks for over a couple of weeks and that the Internet Search Leader wants to buy it (and to combine it with its unified communication platform Babel) for $1 billion (only?!). In comparison to, YouTube was brought for $1.65 billion in November 2006. At that time, Youtube was a bit more than one year old. Today, 4 years later after its creation, WhatsApp has certainly a big value, but $1 billion seems extreme when you know that they are some other alternatives such as LINE, WeChat, Nimbuzz, Tango, KakaoTalk, etc.

Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp’s business development head, told AllThingsDigital (http://allthingsd.com/) yesterday that the company is not holding sales talks with Google... Rumor or not, after the launch of FacebookHome on April 12th, Google needs to find a way to stay in the mobile industry (if that's what the Company really wants...); or perhaps Google is now only focusing on 'wearable computing' device, such as Google Glass, and doesn't need to compete in platform messaging app anymore. According to Sergey Brin, smartphones are "emasculating" anyway...

It is being touted that 17 billion messages (7 billion inbound and 10 billion outbound) are transmitted daily through WhatsApp (click here). It seems to me a bit excessive though.  WhatsApp saw a record of 18 billion messages processed on a special day (New Year Eve 2012). However this could be misleading as its normal to send more messages on a special day such as NYE as opposed to any other day. But perhaps I'm wrong ...

WhatsApp has remained mum about its revenue, but a source says that WhatsApp may have a ballpark of $100 million in yearly revenue (click here).

In sum, just a rumor ... :-)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jouets connectés : Méfiez-vous des poupées et robots qui violent la vie privée de vos enfants... et la vôtre !

Image
C ’est la période des fêtes : le moment est venu de trouver le prochain cadeau de vos enfants ! Les Playmobil et Lego étant un peu trop muets à votre goût, vous penchez cette année pour les jouets dits « connectés », tels la poupée « My Friend Cayla » et le robot « I-QUE ». Méfiez-vous, bien qu’innovants, ces jouets ne respectent pas toujours la vie privée de vos enfants ! Il n’en fallait bien pas moins à la CNIL pour mettre la main dessus… Source Qu’est-ce qu’un objet connecté ? Les objets connectés sont des objets dotés de moyen de communication avec ou sans fil (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) qui prennent souvent la forme d’objets d’apparence anodine (poupées, robots, etc.) et qui collectent des informations. On les retrouve dans de nombreux domaines, comme la domotique, le sport, le bien-être et la santé, les activités de loisirs, etc. Ces objets peuvent être autonomes ou peuvent fonctionner avec un smartphone ou une tablette. Ce dernier sert de télécommande pour ...
Read more

NSA Collects Millions Of e-mail And Instant Messaging (IM) Accounts Around The World

Fresh and interesting article from Reuters about  U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging (IM) accounts around the world: 'The collection program intercepts email address books and "buddy lists" from instant messaging services as they move across global data links, the newspaper said in an article posted on its website, citing senior intelligence officials and documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The Post said analyzing that data lets the NSA search for connections and map relationships among foreign intelligence targets. The data collection takes place outside the United States, but sweeps in the contacts of many Americans, the report said, citing two senior U.S. intelligence officials. A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, said the agency is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about foreig...
Read more