And people still claim there is no tech bubble (outside of Apple, of course).
Facebook is starting to become attractive for Google with all that data Facebook has. I wonder what Google will pay for Facebook? Probably something ridiculous too.
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Facebook Buying Messaging App WhatsApp for $16 Billion
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Facebook is starting to become attractive for Google with all that data Facebook has. I wonder what Google will pay for Facebook? Probably something ridiculous too.
What you pay for your connection has nothing to do with The quality of your connectivity...
The number of $$ is absurd
Yep. BMW has a market cap of about 3 times that. Really?!
It's funny how things get valued with other people's money. The banks and the funds will sell and resell this and get their fees. When this is not a hot fad anymore, the morons who bought the hype will be left holding the bag, while the banks and Mark will laugh all the way to the bank (pun intended).
Or when Disney bought Pixar for $7.6 Billion. What the heck... $16B for an app I've never heard of and none of my immediate friends have used it... weird.
I hear you but you probably don't use Facebook either. If you had a few worthwhile contacts on any crappy social service, you would begin to see its value.
Doesn't matter. These days it seems the more you (over)pay for something the higher your stock goes.
WhatsApp has 500 million users. Let's say 50% of those users pay $1 (alot of people got it for free). That's $250 million per year in revenue. $16 billion / $250 million = 64 years.
So in 64 years Whatsapp will break even assuming Whatsapp can keep it's $500 million users. Tech never lasts very long so it's likely whatsapp doesn't have an user base in 64 years. (just look at MSN / hotmail which was the biggest messaging client a few years ago). What are those M&A analysts smoking
Congratulations to all the people at Whatsapp. They got probably the best deal in the history of acquisitions? $500 million per employee.
Take a wild guess how Facebook makes their billions?
hint: not from a subscription fee
i'm assuming the post refers to the fact that apple's acquisitions are relatively small and usually involve companies that have a tangible product and engineers making real profit. does whatsapp make money? i don't know but would it really surprise anyone to find out that Facebook just acquires them for all of the users. i can buy mailing lists too. that doesn't make me successful.
What is so confusing? I type the name of the person and Contacts fills in the contact. I'd say its almost idiot proof.
Well, if it took 16 billion dollars for them to sell, there's likely no way Apple would've been interested in the company at that price anyway. Apple's MO is to buy a company that's still in its infancy but they have amazing talent and some innovative ideas that intersect with what Apple is wanting to accomplish.
Apple seems to be in the business of acquiring really good talent at a very reasonable price. $16B for an instant messaging platform plus the talent behind it doesn't seem very reasonable.
Apple seems to be in the business of acquiring really good talent at a very reasonable price. $16B for an instant messaging platform plus the talent behind it doesn't seem very reasonable.
Apple doesn't "need" to do anything. What happened here just shows that Facebook is run by amateurs with too much money in their pockets that they didn't have to work hard for.
That's a totally ridiculous valuation.
For comparison, Facebook's last quarter was their most profitable ever and they made $500M from it (or $2Bn per year). That means that Facebook - the entire company - would need to work for 10 years at their current profitability levels to make the money they just blew on WhatsApp!
In conclusion, WhatsApp will never be a profitable enterprise for Facebook. There is no way they're going to turn it in to a business that makes that much profit on its own that it pays back the purchase price.
Not only that, but Facebook Messenger is just as popular as WhatsApp in my experience (if not more so). They don't need to spend this incredible amount of money here.
Zuckerberg is doing Facebook's shareholders no favours. He founded the company, but he should have gone the Larry/Sergey route and hired an experienced CEO to actually run the thing. I wouldn't be surprised to see him fired in the next couple of years if things continue like this.
Yeah, Facebook are more profitable than they've ever been, but that's because they've finally stuck ads in to their mobile apps and made them more intrusive than ever. It's well documented that young people are leaving the platform, Facebook Home was a disaster, and now they go and blow 10 years worth of profit on a company they don't really need.
Facebook's market cap right now is $173Bn. Is WhatsApp really worth 11% of Facebook?
For comparison, Facebook's last quarter was their most profitable ever and they made $500M from it (or $2Bn per year). That means that Facebook - the entire company - would need to work for 10 years at their current profitability levels to make the money they just blew on WhatsApp!
In conclusion, WhatsApp will never be a profitable enterprise for Facebook. There is no way they're going to turn it in to a business that makes that much profit on its own that it pays back the purchase price.
Not only that, but Facebook Messenger is just as popular as WhatsApp in my experience (if not more so). They don't need to spend this incredible amount of money here.
Zuckerberg is doing Facebook's shareholders no favours. He founded the company, but he should have gone the Larry/Sergey route and hired an experienced CEO to actually run the thing. I wouldn't be surprised to see him fired in the next couple of years if things continue like this.
Yeah, Facebook are more profitable than they've ever been, but that's because they've finally stuck ads in to their mobile apps and made them more intrusive than ever. It's well documented that young people are leaving the platform, Facebook Home was a disaster, and now they go and blow 10 years worth of profit on a company they don't really need.
Facebook's market cap right now is $173Bn. Is WhatsApp really worth 11% of Facebook?
Some interesting additional insight from Sequoia:
http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired
That engineering ratio is _astounding_.
http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired
That engineering ratio is _astounding_.
When did interneters forget about Skype?
You know it's funny because Skype was never the go to app for that. Don't get me wrong, I have about $50+ Skype credit to call international but as for a messenger it's just never really caught on.
iMessage is not outdated, the only things you could say it lacks is cross platform integration, and group chats.whatsapp would have been the best alternative forto replace the outdated iMessage, however 16, or 19 billions
What remains for
- Kik Messenger
- Hike
- messageme
- hemlis messenger
Myself I'm on a plan where I get unlimited free texts, however one of my contacts often spends time in a location that gets no mobile service but they can get wifi and do not have an iDevice, for that reason only I use Whatsapp and only for the one contact.
I also don't do group chats, so that isn't personally a problem for me.
iMessages integration into texts is far beyond what any other messaging app offers (apart from BBM on Blackberry's) and you can not call that outdated.
In my opinion for Apple to make iMessage better they do not need to buy an existing app, they just need to add 1 or two features and potentially offer cross platform support.
yeah I think that must be right. I'm in the US and don't know a single person who uses this app, and I tend to have relatively tech-current friends and acquaintances.