Tag Archives: telecom

#Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App #Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion

Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion

 

China’s Alibaba is the latest Internet giant to make a bet on the messaging space, and it’s a big one. The company is spending $215 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango, the startup revealed today.

The investment is part of a $280 million funding round that Alibaba is leading, which also will see other current investors in Tango stump up more capital.

The round values Tango at $1.1 billion, based on a regulatory filing sourced by research firm VC Experts, who estimate that Alibaba’s stake lies somewhere between 20 and 25%. Two people close to the deal confirmed the estimate.

Tango, based in Mountain View, Calif., would not comment on its valuation or the size of Alibaba’s stake.

http://www.forbes.com/

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How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook’s New $19 Billion Baby

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the  railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network.

http://www.forbes.com

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WhatsApp Shows How Phone Carriers Lost Out on $33 Billion

Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge.

Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world — from Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) to America Movil SAB (AMXL) and Verizon Communications Corp. — $32.5 billion in texting fees in 2013, according to research from Ovum Ltd. That figure is projected to reach $54 billion by 2016.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Previous article :  https://www.currencyfundgroup.com/2014/02/10/we-all-turn-to-data-adios-sms-and-calls/

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WhatsApp’s Founder Goes From Food Stamps to Billionaire

The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising.

He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and started a company by 2009 that shuns advertising altogether. The strategy allowed them to concentrate on creating an easy-to-use messaging product instead of developing new ways to glean customer information for their marketing pitches, Koum said in a 2012 blog post.

“No one wakes up excited to see more advertising, no one goes to sleep thinking about the ads they’ll see tomorrow,” Koum said in the post. A hand-written note on the his desk reads: “No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!”

http://www.bloomberg.com/

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Four Numbers That Explain Why Facebook Acquired WhatsApp

Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team.

From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and Brian shunned the spotlight, refusing even to hang a sign outside the WhatsApp offices in Mountain View. As competitors promoted games and rushed to build platforms, Jan and Brian remained devoted to a clean, lightning fast communications service that works flawlessly.

http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/

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Facebook to buy messaging app WhatsApp for $19bn

Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares.

It is the social networking giant’s biggest acquisition to date.

WhatsApp has over 450 million monthly users and is popular with people looking to avoid text messaging charges.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26266689

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Why buy Viber ? Here some view

With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone.

The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market?

http://blogs.wsj.com/

 

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We all turn to data. Adios SMS and Calls

In a taxi, workshops, banking halls, under tree shades, name it – you cannot miss seeing someone on Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Kik or Whatsapp, thanks to the increasing popularity of internet-enabled phones and smartphones.

Evidence can be found in the news of the planet.

Informa Telecoms & Media has predicted that global annual SMS revenues will fall by US$23bn by 2018, to US$96.7bn, down from US$120 billion in 2013.

Belgian operator Proximus recorded a drop in SMS traffic over the New Year holiday. Traffic was down 9 percent froAccording to initial figures from

Spanish operator Yoigo reported that 8 percent more customers used mobile data services over the New Year’s holiday, and data used per customer rose 170 percent from a year earlier.

 

France’s mobile operators, the new year brought further evidence that SMS usage in the country is being increasingly cannibalised by alternative services such as MMS or picture messages and over-the-top messaging apps.

If you think that telecom provider will rise the cost to compensate then you probably miss that in Europe there will be no more roaming cost soon.

“From July 2014 you would no longer be charged extra when you receive a call on your mobile phone while travelling in another EU country. Companies would need to offer “roam like at home” packages that apply across the bloc, or allow you to use a separate roaming provider without changing your original SIM card.”

Telecoms are not simply sitting back to watch their revenues from voice calls and SMS shrink. They have shifted goalposts towards data, with solid competition for the internet subscribers expected.

Ready for this trend ?

So how will telecom companies react to this ?

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