The Japanese Online Retailer Rakuten has closed the purchase of Viber, the instant messaging application that at the time aimed to be the rival of WhatsApp. The purchase has been closed for 900 million (about 657 million euros). With this new acquisition, Rakouten wants to make Viber Naver's main competitor, responsible for the successful Line instant messaging application that has managed to succeed in the Asian market.
Instant messaging applications have become a success in recent years. WhatsApp is one of the most successful in the world, even after the controversy over the annual fee for Android or Windows Phone users. Along with WhatsApp applications such as Viber and Line reached the mobile device sector to unseat the first time however, of these two applications mentioned, one has been more successful than the other. In the case of Viber, this was postulated at the time as a clear threat to WhatsApp since it also allowed making VoIP calls with other users of the application. Even so, although it has 300 million users, the truth is that it has not managed to be the great threat to an unbeatable WhatsApp. On the other hand, Naver's application, Line, is also growing in Europe, although it is really very successful in the Asian market.
However, this Friday the protagonist is Viber since it has been acquired by the Japanese online retailer Rakuten. For those who do not know this Japanese company is one of the giants of electronic commerce, not only in Japan but also worldwide, reaching the level of Amazon itself. This company also has 50 million registered users in its country of origin and outside its borders it has also begun to be known after its investment in the social network Pinterest and by the acquisition of the Spanish online video store Wuaki.tv.
As collected from Bloomberg, the operation has been closed for 900 million dollars, about 657 million euros at the exchange rate. With the purchase of Viber, Rakuten seeks to be a strong rival for Naver, the company responsible for the Line service, and for this the company is committed to growing the service through a complete transformation, thus managing to overcome the barrier of the 300 million users that Viber currently has and positioning itself again as a strong rival for WhatsApp or Line.
Since the Viber application is available in Spain, users will wait impatiently what new features will the purchase by Rakuten bring to the service. Recently, this application for VoIP calls and instant messaging added the well-known stickers that popularized both its rival Line and even the social network Facebook. The truth is that from the beginning Viber focused on VoIP calls and later on instant messaging, so more than being a tough rival for WhatsApp, it follows the line of other services such as Skype and even now BBM, after a recent update of this last service.
Source: Bloomberg