Mobile messaging app Whatsapp is in talks to be acquired by Facebook, sources close to the matter told TechCrunch. Further details on the price and timing of the acquisition were not reported. The companies declined to comment.
Acquiring the popular messaging app would provide a big boost to Facebook's mobile strategy, where it has been working to expand its offering. In its last quarterly report, Facebook reported monthly mobile users on the social network up 61 percent year-on-year to 604 million, already more than half its total user base of just over 1 billion.
While WhatsApp has not disclosed user numbers, it announced in August that its traffic had passed over 10 billion messages a day. The app has grown from around 2 billion messages per day in March, and consistently ranks among the most-downloaded apps in a number of countries.
