Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, speaking to mobile tech leaders in Barcelona, said WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app purchased by the social media giant last week, was "worth more than $19 billion."
Zuckerberg's comments at Mobile World Congress, referencing the eye-watering price paid for WhatsApp, were met with surprise.
But Zuckerberg said the
company was "a great fit for us. Already almost half-a-billion people
love using WhatsApp for messaging and it's the most engaging app we've
ever seen exist on mobile so far.
"It's on a path to
connecting a billion people. There are very few services in the world
that can reach that level and they're all incredibly valuable."
Zuckerberg said there
were no plans to harvest data from
WhatsApp messages, in answer to a question from the audience. "That's the service that people want, we would be silly to change it."
WhatsApp messages, in answer to a question from the audience. "That's the service that people want, we would be silly to change it."
Asked if he thought
concerns over privacy could be a problem for Facebook as it aims for
greater global penetration, he said: "The NSA issue is a real issue,
especially for American internet companies.
"Trust is just such an
important thing when you're thinking about using any service where
you're going to share important and personal information.
"We continue to work to be sure we can share everything that the government is asking of us."
"The government kind of
blew it on this. Governments have a responsibility to protect folks and
to also be transparent about what they're doing and I think they've just
been way over the line in terms of sharing what they are doing.
"But they are only now
starting to get to the range of where they should have been. I think
this whole thing could have been avoidable and it would have been a lot
better for the internet."
Asked if Facebook would
consider bidding again for Snapchat, Zuckerberg said: "After buying a
company for $16 billion you're probably done for a while." Snapchat
reportedly turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook last year.
Zuckerberg's debut at
the trade show, the biggest of its kind in the world, underlines the
importance of mobile to the future of the social media giant.
While audience interest
was in WhatsApp, Zuckerberg -- on stage with technology journalist and
writer David Kirkpatrick --- was at the show to promote Facebook's work
with Internet.org.
Facebook partnered with technology leaders, nonprofits, local communities and experts for the initiative.
Zuckerberg said the goal
of Internet.org is to ensure everyone in the world has access to the
internet in some form, either for a small cost or for free. He said this
could be achieved by improving mobile infrastructure and reducing the
amount of data required to use services.
"Most people in the
world don't have access to the internet at all ... it's about 2.7
billion people today. It's growing way slower than you would imagine.
Our vision is to try to connect everyone."
Via: CNN
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