The big news yesterday afternoon came from Facebook, who announced that they were acquiring popular cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion–a staggering sum that dwarfs the nearly $1 billion Facebook paid for Instagram back in 2012.
But it looks like Facebook wasn’t the only suitor who offered big bucks for WhatsApp.
According to Fortune, multiple sources say that Google offered $10 billion to purchase WhatsApp. If true, it looks like WhatsApp’s decision to hold out was a smart one. Facebook’s acquisition deal is comprised of $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares, and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of a possible Google bid for the popular messaging service. Nearly a year ago, rumors circulated that Google was in talks to acquire WhatsApp for $1 billion.
WhatsApp quickly denied those claims. The sources of the rumor said that WhatsApp was “jockeying” for a higher acquisition price at the time, so it appears they had nothing but confidence in the worth of their little app even back in April of last year.
According to WhatsApp, they can boast 450 monthly users–70% of which are active on any given day. The app, which allows users to send text, image, video, and audio messages, says it’s beginning to rival the entire global telecom SMS volume–a fact that no doubt had a lot to do with these gigantic offers.
Image via WhatsApp, Facebook