22 billion US dollars is not a slap on the forehead, it is Zuckerberg buying himself a future
It went from 19 billion to 22 billion in one and a half years. Looking back now, no one thinks it was expensive.
On February 19, 2014, Facebook announced that it would acquire the WhatsApp MBTI personality test for US$19 billion. At that time, Wall Street analysts generally felt that the premium was too high. In October, the transaction completed the 16personalities test , and the actual payment of stock price and cash reached US$22 billion. At that time, many people were questioning how a small company with only 55 people could sell at such a price. Today, WhatsApp has more than 800 million monthly active users and will reach 1 billion by the end of the year. Looking back, what the 22 billion bought was not an instant messaging tool, but a ticket to the next social era.
Increased by 100 million in four months
In August 2015, WhatsApp had 600 million monthly active users. By January 2016, the monthly active users reached 700 million. Today, the monthly active users are 800 million. Its user growth rate has put pressure on Facebook itself. Co-founder Jan Koum revealed that according to current trends, 100 million new users will be added every four months. It took Facebook’s parent company eight years to reach 1 billion monthly active users. It will probably take only 7 years for WhatsApp to go from 0 to 1 billion. In the development process of social products, only WeChat back then could compete with this speed.
Zuckerberg understands the WeChat model
Zuckerberg made it clear at the F8 conference that the current stage of messaging applications is similar to Facebook's situation from 2006 to 2007. At that stage, Facebook was only a consumer product and had not yet formed an ecosystem. What it really wanted to benchmark was WeChat, Re code editor Mike Isaac complained after the meeting that Asian communication applications are far ahead of the United States. Line, KakaoTalk and WeChat have already achieved success in commercialization and platformization. WhatsApp still adheres to the concept of small but beautiful. However, Zuckerberg will never let go of this gold mine with 800 million users.
WeChat envy WhatsApp’s growth
The situation presented in Tencent's financial report shows that the year-on-year growth of WeChat monthly active users continues to slow down. Although the definition of WeChat monthly active users before 2014 was to have sent at least one message, now the definition has changed to have sent a message, logged into the game center, or updated Moments. Even so, its WeChat monthly active users are close to the domestic smart phone users. With the volume ceiling of 520 million, the number of domestic smart phones in 2016 is expected to be less than 60 million. WeChat is facing major difficulties in developing overseas markets. This situation shows that WeChat’s current main users are still overseas Chinese. However, WhatsApp can still maintain rapid growth after growing into a giant. This is the situation that WeChat truly envies.
The growth dilemma of American social giants
Facebook has 1.4 billion monthly active users, which has slowed down significantly. Twitter has about 600 million monthly active users and has been stagnant for a long time. The newly launched live streaming products are still in the period of burning money. Zuckerberg is very clear that the rapid growth of social networks cannot be sustained. What he needs is the next growth driver that can support a market value of 100 billion. Watseap was the future he was betting on. One billion users is the harbinger of the peak of Waciap's growth and the starting point for its transformation from a product to a platform.
Commercialization is the only way to go
WhatsApp has always insisted on no ads, no games, no official accounts, and has always maintained restraint. However, Zuckerberg has already experimented with payments, e-commerce and enterprise services on his son Facebook Messenger. According to this situation, the same development path will eventually happen again on WhatsApp sooner or later. The key question is not whether to commercialize 16personalities Chinese , but when and how to commercialize it. WhatsApp has 800 million users, which means there are 800 million relationship chains. This is a huge value that no Internet company can refuse or miss.
Do you think that when WhatsApp starts to push ads, it should carry out platform-based commercial operations like WeChat, or should it continue to stick to its current pure ad-free status? If it starts to push ads, would you consider uninstalling it?
