It has just been announced that Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. will buy call and messaging app provider Viber Media Inc for $900 million.
Rakuten, founded and controlled by billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani, has the largest e-commerce site in Japan.
According to Mikitani, Viber, run from Cyprus by Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco, will add 300 million users to Rakuten’s existing 200 million users.
“This acquisition… will take Rakuten to a different level,” said Mikitani, who is also the company’s chief executive. The all-cash deal was announced after Rakuten reported an 80 percent jump in its 2013 operating profit.
“Developing this messaging system on our own would have been impossible,” he added, saying Rakuten users could, for example, use Viber’s instant messages to contact an online store while considering a purchase.
Viber is one of the top five most downloaded smartphone phone call and messaging apps, and counts the United States, Russia and Australia among its biggest markets.
Its chief executive Marco told the same media conference Rakuten’s acquisition would help his company become a platform for digital content, not just a provider of free voice calls and messages.
A plethora of messaging apps, including the likes of Viber, are seeking to capitalise on the appeal of their free services, especially in emerging markets.
Viber is funded from the pockets of its founders and several private investors from the United States. It competes with instant messaging apps such as WeChat, a unit of Chinese Internet firm Tencent Holdings Ltd, U.S. rival WhatsApp, and Line, owned by Korean company Naver Corp .
Viber recently launched an instant messaging app for personal computers that allows users to make outgoing mobile calls to other Viber users and non-registered mobiles, making it a rival to Skype.
The acquisition by Rakuten is expected to be completed by the end of March, both companies said.
