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Another one bites the dust; Facebook buys WhatApp for $19 billion

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S Aadeetya
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Offlate early morning shockers have become quite a common sight in the world of technology, with the most notable incident to happen in the past month being Lenovo buying out Motorola Mobility from Google reportedly for $2.5 billion. The second biggest annoucement came during the wee hours of today when Facebook, the social networking giant officially talked about its decision of buying WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging application for reported sum of $19 billion.

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Acquisitions have come to prominence since the dawn of 2014 but it has to be said that Facebook's strategy in buying WhatsApp comes with a bigger agenda and focus to remain a potent force in the market, both from consumer as well as business point of view.

Both have been frontrunners in their own expertised areas and by adding instant messaging features to its social networking repertoire, Facebook is looking to buck the trend of falling giants and keen to restore its supremacy in the world of connectivity by upgrading itself on regular basis.

Facebook recently has been going through uncertain times mainly owing to high internet penetration on smart devices which has impacted its declining user base globally. But with WhatsApp, the company can utilise that aspect of the said growth and therby improve its situation gradually.

WhatsApp's user base has grown rapidly over the years across the globe with the company reported to have around 35 million user in India alone, so the overall numbers may represent a value-for-money for Facebook from a long term perspective.

One hopes that the Facebook-WhatsApp union does not end up like some of the worst business decision based buyouts over the years. 

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