A Giant's Defense: Facebook Pays $19 Billion for WhatsApp

In February 2014, Facebook (predecessor to Meta), based at its Menlo Park, California headquarters, announced a staggering deal: the acquisition of mobile messaging giant WhatsApp for approximately $19 billion (cash and stock). WhatsApp, at the time, boasted about 450 million global users, processing tens of billions of messages daily.

Facebook aimed to eliminate a critical competitive threat and solidify its absolute dominance in the global mobile communication sector. This blockbuster transaction demonstrated the high price social media giants were willing to pay for user base and talent, marking an unprecedented valuation peak for mobile messaging applications.