Is The $19 Billion Paid For WhatsApp Justifiable?

   So Facebook has just acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion... yes billion. That's crazy money. Regular people like me and you can not even start to comprehend just how much $19 billion will buy, but we can have a go. $19 billion, or $19,000,000,000 will buy you 53 Boeing 747's or 47,622 Rolls Royce Phantoms. $19 billion would also buy you 142 Gareth Bales if you fancy making a world 11, but why pay this vast amount of money for a company founded less than 5 years ago? With only 55 employees? Including shareholders?

   WhatsApp has been on the rise with 450 million users every month, with this rising at an estimated rate of 1 million a day. As it stands WhatsApp has half the amount of users of Facebook but for a fraction of the value. Obviously this attracted a lot of attention, and surely many other companies were looking at deals. The $19 billion paid by Facebook, (of which $12 billion is shares, $4 billion in cash and a further $3 billion in restricted shares for shareholders,) has sent out a huge message: Facebook is here, and it's here to exist. Longevity is the statement Zuckerberg is making, and at the same time purchasing what was a threat to his major company, ultimately making him an copious amount of money.

   WhatsApp states that £33 billion was taken from telecom companies, losing revenue from messages being sent by the app without charge. This is a direction in which the world is taking... Why pay to send a SMS when you can do it for free, bar a $0.99 per year charge. Facebook tried to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion last year, the same that they paid for photo sharing app giant Instagram. $3 billion wasn't enough to purchase Snapchat, so Facebook had to do something... quickly.

   People seem to forget that a few years ago Facebook scrapped plans to charge for their services as petitions from site users, saying they would stop using the social networking site, surfaced. Charging for Facebook would surely have created its demise, with the history of other sites becoming stale, such as Bebo and Myspace, it's not really a chance they could take. WhatsApp already charge a $0.99 pa subscription, with the additional services of Facebook and Instagram could Zuckerberg start charging for all 3 sites as a package?

   This recent investment may launch social network tycoon, Zuckerberg, higher up the rich list: A list in which he's currently standing in amongst the 25 richest people in the world. Or maybe not. Either way, the money paid for WhatsApp may be a grand bit of business... or a famous flop. Only time will tell.

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