Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is awarded approval by EU Regulators for $19 billion Whatsapp deal

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) will have no opposition from EU against its huge offer of $19 billion to acquire one of the world’s most popular instant mobile messaging platform Whatsapp.

It appears that Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) will have no resistance from EU for getting an approval for its Whatsapp purchase deal that is worth $19 billion; according to reports EU approval will be unconditional. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is up against a few telecom operators who also want to own the mobile chatting platform, which currently has about 450 million users across the globe.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)’s Whatsapp acquisition will become the biggest ever in the history of social networking giant. It will allow the company to create a strong presence in the rapidly growing market for mobile messaging.

Whatsapp soon aims to offer its users the free call service, which is currently missing in the app. A free service for voice calling will make this purchase even more important and strong for Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB). One of the biggest accomplishments of Whatsapp – the one that Facebook will focus on – is the percentage of its daily active users, which is as high as 70%. It is believed that Whatsapp in near future will connect around 1 billion users from all parts of the world – a prospect that Facebook considers extremely valuable.

According to analysts telecom sector will not be too pleased with this acquisition because it is likely to affect their earnings – telecom sector revenue has seen a decline for four straight years and is currently looking at its fifth year. The sector has made efforts to convince EU to force Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) to offer some sort of concessions.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) however does not believe that this deal will have any effect on the competition; therefore the company successfully convinced EU that no concessions were needed.

According to Fried Frank’s (law firm) Tobias Caspary, “Both parties are offering their services for free. It seems unlikely that customersare locked in with respect to instant messaging, and it would be relatively easy to switch to alternative offers, for example Skype or Line”.

An unknown source said that EU will soon give unconditional approval to Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB); however the decision has not been made public yet. When EU was approached for comments, Antoine Colombani – EU’s spokesperson – refused to give any. According to reliable sources the official decision from EU will come on the 3rd of October.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) was successful in getting an approval from the U.S. regulators back in April. However Whatsapp was advised to maintain its current privacy policies even after getting acquired. This policy involves a clause about not using its user data for targeted advertising. It will be interesting to see how Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) handles this clause later.

WhatsApp and a few of its competitors including Viber have been giving telecom operators a run for their money for the past few years. They have not only won over a huge percentage of their customers, but have also forced them to revise their text messaging policies. These platforms have caused a decline in telecom’s revenues. Now with Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) in the picture things are about to get even more serious for the telecom sector.

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