Facebook announces it buys Mobile Messaging App WhatsApp for $19 billion dollars. WhatsApp has close to 450 million users, and is increasing with an additional million users every day.
As I wrote the other week, LINE is steadily growing in Japan, and is also attracting users all over Asia, Europa and South America. Currently the mobile app has over 350 million users.
Last week, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten acquired Cyprus messaging app Viber. The app claims to have over 300 million users worldwide. The Next Web talks about Rakuten’s strategy to focus on the growth of mobile messaging platforms – and to be able to achieve the same journey as Line. (more…)