WhatsApp, the universal mobile messaging service, has been amidst the rumours that the California-based corporation is currently undergoing a $1bn acquisition by Google.
Earlier this week, Digital Trends ignited the rumours by stating that both organisations were involved in a sales talk with WhatsApp contemplating the sale of the business for $1bn. However, after speaking to AllThingsD, Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp’s Head Of Development, insisted that he was unaware of any negotiations between the two businesses and insisted that no proposal by Google has been made.
WhatsApp has been on the forefront of the digital era. Founded in 2009, the cross-platform instant messaging service has played a direct part in the downfall of SMS growth. It has been reported that the service now processes over 18 billion messages a day, across 100 countries and 750 network providers. Whilst WhatsApp, currently fifth highest revenue earner in the iTunes App Store and seventh in Google Play, earns $100m a year, according to several anonymous sources.
Following on from Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype subsidiaries and the closure of Live Messenger (formerly MSN), it is apparent that Google will be looking to combat this mobile service following their unsuccessful alternatives – Google Talk, GChat, Google Plus Messenger and Google Hangout.
Facebook also features amongst the rumours of WhatsApp’s acquisition, after their investment into messaging service Beluga was primarily for the acquisition of their engineers to improve the current Facebook messaging system, but following on from the highly successful announcement of Facebook Home last week, it looks like Facebook may not require any support from WhatsApp.
It would come as no surprise to witness the sale of WhatsApp completed by Google, whom are currently in the middle of developing their own service Babel, after Google’s Product Manager Nikhyl Singhal admitted late last year that the business had “done an incredibly poor job of servicing our users”.