Even as Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, reports suggested that Google made several efforts to stop the deal from going through, even offering to purchase the cross-platform messaging app for more than what was being offered. However, the search engine ginat denies having ever made offers to buy WhatsApp.
The Telegraph has quoted Google’s Senior Vice President, Sundar Pichai as saying that reports about Google’s offer of $10 billion for Whatsapp were “simply untrue”. Pichai was speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona when he denied the claims.
Pichai said that the company had talked to Google in the past to work more closely and showered praises on WhatsApp but said that there had been no such offer. “Whatsapp was definitely an exciting product,” he said, adding however, “We never made an offer to acquire them. Press reports to the contrary are simply untrue.”
The statement comes as a bit of a surprise to the tech world as it was earlier said that Facebook outbid Google to clinch the WhatsApp deal. It was also being reported that Google also offered a figure in millions of dollars to WhatsApp to simply inform the company when the messenger service was getting into talks of acquisitions. The reports had also added that Google’s CEO Larry Page had met with WhatsApp’s leadership in a last ditch effort to halt the Facebook deal.
Facebook made a shock purchase of the cross-platform messaging app earlier this month for $19 billion. WhatsApp has over 450 million users and is growing rapidly over the past five years. Recently, WhatsApp’s CEO Jan Koum announced that the service would be getting voice calling soon too.
No comments:
Post a Comment