eMarketer: Data explains why WhatsApp is worth $19 billion

In 2013, WhatsApp users grew 230% in North America.
Facebook’s acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp has sparked a lot of conversation about the overall mobile messaging landscape. A February 2014 press release from Juniper Research predicted that by 2018, messaging apps will account for 75% of global mobile messaging traffic, or 63 trillion messages. However, revenue from these apps overall is likely to be just over $3 billion, or just 2% of mobile messaging revenue.
While instant messaging apps boast high traffic, Juniper Research says this is because users typically send more "chat" messages with information that can be included in an SMS or MMS message. Other factors, such as group chats and emoticons, also contribute to increased traffic. While traffic may continue to rise, overall revenue remains a challenge.

So why spend $19 billion on WhatsApp? Despite these revenue hurdles, the mobile messaging app has seen a surge in usage, and WhatsApp's wider international presence could help Facebook enter new global markets -- and the social network could help the chat app expand its presence in North America. According to a February blog post by GlobalWebIndex, more than 200 million people worldwide regularly use the app, a number that grew 175 percent last year. While Asia-Pacific has by far the largest number of users (101 million), North America is the real story, with users in the region growing 230 percent to 7 million in 2013. Those are small numbers, to be sure, but they show major growth potential.

Despite the different user sizes in each region, the alliance between Facebook and WhatsApp appears to be following similar trends in the U.S. and around the world. In January 2014, strategic analytics firm AppOptix found that among U.S. Android users who had the Facebook app, 63% used the app daily, compared to 36% who used WhatsApp.

Similarly, GlobalWebIndex found that 69% of mobile users worldwide use the Facebook app, while 36% use WhatsApp in the fourth quarter of 2013. As time goes by, many will watch to see if the two apps can merge together into a global mobile social messaging powerhouse.