Google is reportedly looking to purchase the mega popular cross platform messaging service WhatsApp at the moment, if reports from news site DigitalTrends are to be true. This purchase could see the messaging service snapped up by Google for a cool 1 billion dollars!
The news has a firm foot in speculation but if any part of the rumours are true we could see yet another app-based billionaire in our midst if Google does go ahead and buy the messaging service.
WhatsApp is a subscription-based messaging service which is available on all major smartphone systems – Android, iOS, Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 – and it allows users of the service to send text messages, pictures and video messages free of charge to anyone with the app and anywhere in the world.
The service is usually charged at just £0.69 or $0.99 for a yearly subscription but most users get a year’s worth for free when they first start off, so the system is proving to be phenomenally successful.
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum and by 2011 the app had risen in popularity so much that users of the service were sending one billion messages every day, and by the end of 2012 WhatsApp reported that 18 billion messages were sent on New Year’s Day 2012 alone!
See also: Apple names its ‘Apps of the Year’ for iPhone and iPad
Google has been looking to expand its Android and cross platform user services in the past few months, so WhatsApp would look like a great addition to its growing number of services, and we cant help but think that Google is on to something big after recently making big changes to its Google+ social network and some of the systems recently purchased.
Still though, this is all classed as a rumour, but could WhatsApp be the next big Google purchase? We will have to wait and see.