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Google reportedly in talks to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion

Google reportedly in talks to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion

By Surbhi Chawla | Updated: 9 April 2013 14:57 IST

Google is reportedly in talks to buy messaging app WhatsApp. As per Digital Trends, the two companies are currently negotiating the deal price and this could be Google's next billion dollar acquisition.

(Update: WhatsApp denies Google acquisition rumours)

The website also claims that Google and WhatsApp have been in talks for over five weeks now. Furthermore, the report claims that WhatsApp is trying to play hard to get and is trying to command a higher price from Google for this deal.

It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that reports of Google trying to woo WhatsApp have surfaced. Google was said to have been in talks to acquire WhatsApp in December last year too but the two companies had parted ways without signing on the dotted line. If Google is able to pull off the buyout this time around, it will get a significant boost for the mobile messaging space.

Though Google does has the resources to build a cross-mobile messaging app from scratch, some believe it might be too late for the search engine giant to enter into this space. Hence, the acquisition makes a lot of sense.

Additionally, Google is also rumoured to be working on a unified communication platform Babel. The combination of WhatsApp and Babel will give Google a competitive advantage in this space.

WhatsApp is a cross platform messaging app. As of now this application is free for download on platforms such as Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone. WhatsApp has recently released a client for the BlackBerry 10 operating system. The company is also planning to launch an app for dual-SIM Asha smartphones by the second quarter of this year.

In the recent past, there have been news reports that suggest WhatsApp will be bracing subscription-based model for iOS by the end of 2013

It is being touted that 17 billion messages (7 billion inbound and 10 billion outbound) are transmitted daily through WhatsApp. What's more WhatsApp has been downloaded by over 100 million Android users alone since its debut.

In the past, there have also been rumours indicating that Facebook is in talks to acquire WhatsApp. However, the social networking giant had denied these rumours.

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