Facebook has bought WhatsApp for approximately £11.4bn or $19bn making it one of the largest acquisitions in tech history. To give you some idea it's over double the amount spent by Microsoft buying Nokia last year.
The app, which is available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 8 has over 450m users and counting. If the deal goes ahead Facebook will be buying one of the largest independent messaging services in the world, beating the likes of ChatOn and Line both of whom have also been seeing steady growth.
In a statement made last night Mark Zuckerberg said, "WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable, I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected."
For those of you wondering if WhatsApp will become integrated into Facebook's own messaging service fear not. According to the company it'll be employing the same approach it took with Instagram, leaving the company to remain separate whilst sharing expertise across the brands.
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