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WhatsApp denies Google acquisition rumours

WhatsApp denies Google acquisition rumours

By Surbhi Chawla | Updated: 9 April 2013 13:42 IST

The popular messaging application WhatsApp has denied rumours suggesting that Google is planning to acquire the company.

Earlier it was reported that Google is looking to acquire the company in a deal that could be valued at a billion dollars. In a conversation with AllThingsDigital, Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp's Business Development Head, revealed that his company is not discussing an acquisition deal with Google but refused to comment further on the subject.

This is not the first time that rumours regarding Google eyeing WhatsApp have surfaced. There were news reports suggesting a possible deal even in December 2012. Around the same time, there were also talks regarding Facebook holding similar talks with WhatsApp. However later both companies distanced themselves from these speculations.

WhatsApp is a cross platform messaging app, which is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone. With the help of this app, users can send text messages, audio, video and even engage in group chat. 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.

WhatsApp had 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. Other popular messaging apps such as Nimbuzz, Line, WeChat and KakaoTalk are also gaining steam, however none of them are currently as popular as WhatsApp.

Google on its part is said to be working on a cross-platform messaging initiative called "Babble." As per rumours, Babble will bring continuity across Google's services across Android and iOS operating systems. Not too long ago, alleged screenshots of Babble were posted online. It was being considered that rather than building a messaging app from the scratch, Google might be taking acquisition route to speed things up.

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