With so much cash thrown around Silicon Valley, it’s not ꧟easy for an acquisition to cause a stir. The 2014 purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook, now Meta, did just that.

It surpassed Google's $3.2 billion purchase of Nest Labs and Apple’s $3 billion Beats Electronics procurement to become one of the largest tech buys of all time.

Facebook's initial $16 billion bid for WhatsApp, originally a text messaging app used widely across the globe, stole headlines. The deal was later finalized at $21.8 billion.

In 2013, the app lost $138 million and brought in $10.2 million in revenue. So how did the company win over Facebook?

WhatsApp Acquisition

WhatsAp𒀰p iꦡs an ad-free mobile application that allows users to send unlimited messages to contacts using WiFi or mobile data networks.

The app is free to download and is an alternative to a cellular provider's traditional text messaging service. The app was established by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, two former Yahoo! executives.

When Facebook announced its plans to acquire WhatsApp in February 2014, WhatsApp's founders attached a purchase price of $16 billion: $4 billion in cash and $12 billion in Facebook shares. This🏅 price tag was dwarfed by the actual price Faceb🃏ook paid: $21.8 billion.

Facebook ಌagreed to pay $19.6 billion—adding $3.6 billion to the original price as compensation to WhatsApp employees for staying on board at Facebook.

However, Facebook share prices soared to $77.56 from $68 when the regulatory approval process concluded in October. By then, the agreed-upon 184 million Facebook shares inflated the final sale price by an additional $2.2 billion, bringing the final cost to the aforementioned $21.8 billion. 

WhatsApp's six-month revenue for the first half of 2014 totaled $15.95 million, and the company incurred a staggering net loss of $233 million. However, the majority of that loss was attributed to share-based compensation.

Why WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's most significant acquisition and one of the most enormous by price that Silicon Valley has ever seen. It is over 20 times larger than its Instagram acquisition, which made quite the splash in 2012.

That begs the $22 billion question: Why did the social media gian🐼t break the bank to buy WhatsApp?

The answer is user growth. In 2014, over 450 million people used WhatsApp monthly, and the service added more than 1 million users per day. With 70% of WhatsApp users being active daily, the app was expected to quickly reach one billion users.

The app launched in 2009 and, as of 2020, had more than 2 billion users. In March 2025, the number of the app's users was approaching 3 billion. As of January 2025, Facebook had 3.07 billion 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:monthly active users.

With a shared mission of enhancing global connectivity via internet services, this merging of forces will likely accelerate growth for both companies. For Zuckerberg, user growth comes first and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:monetization later.

WhatsApp and Mobile Users

WhatsApp was used widely in developing markets where traditional cell phone call and text service was expensive or lacking. As the new owner of WhatsApp, Facebook gained access to these m🅰obile users, which helped fuel its growth.

The company believes it will profit from Whats𓆏App over time as phone calls become obsol𒆙ete and internet-driven mobile messages reign.

This is why Zuckerberg spent over one-tenth of his company's (then) 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:market value to buy the text messaging app, nearly doubling Google's (GOOG) bid and keeping WhatsApp out of the hands of tech rivals.

The Bottom Line

WhatsApp plays a significant role in global areas crucial to Meta's future growth. By putting monetization efforts for the app on hold, Meta has focused on the future of international, cross-platform communications.

Through the acquisition of♛ WhatsApp, the company gai♏ned the ability to reach billions of people, and it is sure to find a way to eventually cash in.