Facebook in talks to buy Whatsapp: Report

Facebook has time and again maintained that mobile will be an important part of its future growth strategy and it seems that the social networking company will be taking the M&A (Merger &Acquisition) route to proceed in that direction. (Update: Both companies have denied the reports)

According to a report in Techcrunch Facebook is in talks to acquire popular messaging app Whatsapp.

Whatsapp, the multiplatform mobile messaging app that has been one of the runaway success stories for ad-free, paid services, has been in talks to be acquired by Facebook, according to sources close to the matter.

We're still digging around on potential price and other details about how advanced the deal is. But as mobile becomes the latest battleground in the Internet's game of thrones, you can see how such a deal could make sense.

Whatsapp is a multi-platform messaging app that providers users an easy way to share text messages, pictures, videos and other files. It is available in over 100 countries and, as per stats revealed by the company in October 2011, used to send over one billion messages a day. In August 2012, the company declared that it had set a new daily record with 4 billion inbound messages and 6 billion outbound messages, recording an astounding 10 billion total messages in a single day.

Facebook, on the other hand, has over one billion active users.

The social networking company had acquired photo-sharing company Instagram for $ 1 billion in its most high profile acquisition till date.