WhatsApp denies it's in talks with Google for $1B buyout
Maker of the popular mobile chat program tells AllThingsD that it's not in negotiations with Google.
WhatsApp, the maker of the popular mobile chat program, denied this evening that it is in talks to be acquired by Google for nearly $1 billion.
The two companies have been talking for "four or five weeks," according to a Digital Trends report last week that cited an unidentified person who claimed to have knowledge of the negotiations. However, Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp's business development head, told AllThingsD that the software maker was not holding negotiations with the Web giant. Arora declined to comment further.
Founded in 2009 and based in Santa Clara, Calif., WhatsApp is the maker of a smartphone app for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, and Windows Phone. It allows users to send text messages, images, and audio and video messages. The ad-free app reportedly has about 100 million daily users, with a presence in 250 countries on a variety of platforms.
WhatsApp has been linked to buyout rumors before. TechCrunch reported in December that Facebook was in talks to buy the cross-platform app, a report that WhatsApp called "a rumor and not factually accurate."
In January, WhatsApp announced that it had set a personal record on New Year's Eve, with 7 billion inbound messages sent that day. Another 11 billion outbound messages were sent in the same time period. WhatsApp's previous one-day record stood at 10 billion total messages.