Whatsapp, the multiplatform mobile messaging app that has been one of the runaway success stories for ad-free, paid services, has been in talks to be acquired by Facebook, according to sources close to the matter.
We’re still digging around on potential price and other details about how advanced the deal is. But as mobile becomes the latest battleground in the Internet’s game of thrones, you can see how such a deal could make sense.
For starters, it would be another way for Facebook to continue extending its touchpoints with mobile consumers, an area Mark Zuckerberg asserted, on the occasion of reaching 1 billion monthly active users on Facebook, would be crucial to Facebook reaching the “next billion.”
“The big thing is obviously going to be mobile,” Zuckerberg toldBusinessWeek. “There are 5 billion people in the world who have phones.”
Whatsapp also has a footprint that fits with Facebook’s focus on international/emerging markets: The messaging app has users in over a hundred countries covering 750 mobile networks, on the iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia S40, Symbian and Windows Phone platforms
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