Are you one of the 450 million users? $18 BN is a staggering price for Facebook to pay, although I suppose at $40 per user there is some logic to it.

I use it to text people back in the UK. Everyone used to use BBM (including myself) before BlackBerry imploded. Now with iPhone and Android plus the few unlucky souls still on BB a cross platform app was needed for me to text everyone.. and so WhatsApp it was/is!

Ditto.

Although I've not used it for more than a year after I had to pay for What's App and decided not too...

I've never had to pay for it. I have had a few notifications in the past telling me that my one year free trial has been extended.. for a another year. I therefore assumed that having to pay after 1 year was a myth!

A funny side note to the guys who created Whatsapp, they were both rejected by Facebook after applying for jobs there. Now they have become FB's biggest acquisition by some margin.

As above, but also because too few of my contacts had it downloaded - same fault all texting apps have. I don't do facebook, but imagine giving all the users a text tool would help promote it.

The cross platform nature (and free usage) made this app a no-brainer. It would be nice to have been missing said-brain five years ago!

I suppose it'll be a major shock to you to learn that I'd never heard of it before FB bought it.

No not such a shock. I'd heard of it but have not used it.

If BlackBerry had released BBM for iOS and Android when it was clear that they were not going to claw back their market share then they could have taken cross platform messaging easily. BBM was the main reason a lot of retail customers chose BlackBerry in the first place.

Whatsapp come in at the right and took a large chunk of the market.

Have no idea where they get these valuations from though..

The fact that Google bid $1BN for the company last year does show that the valuations are being plucked out of the air. Supposedly it has been done on user base.

Blackberry really is a case study in how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

That's all well and good having millions of users.. but how do they make $$ from it? I just don't understand it haha

BlackBerry is a joke! To watch how slowly they were reacting to their competitors was ridiculous.

$18 billion is staggering. Although my understanding is a large chunk of that was paid with overvalued Facebook stock.

WhatsApp supposedly had revenue approaching around $100 million per year and is growing by 1 million users per day so it is does have some value. I'm sure the profit margin must be healthy with just 50 employees.

I'm sure Facebook could have acquired Blackberry and had change with that money. They would have picked up a lot of patents, BBM and real estate. I'm not sure how WhatsApp can be worth more than Blackberry although clearly not losing as much money.

There was a large amount of FB stock in the deal. Basically they are subsuming a potential competitor from what I have read.

I think it was $12 billion shares and $3 billion preferred shares .. give or take a billion haha

Have used it briefly but not anymore. Generally use either iMessage on the iPhone or BBM on the iPhone. I found at the time what's app didn't work very well, too many ads and crashes. I'm sure it's better now or will be with Faecesbook money behind it for development.