---
title: "Behind Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase: A global appetite for texting"
description: "A median of 78% of mobile phone owners in emerging countries used their devices for texting."
date: "2014-02-20"
authors:
  - name: "Bruce Drake"
    job_title: "Former Senior Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/bruce-drake/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/02/20/behind-facebooks-whatsapp-purchase-a-global-appetite-for-texting/"
categories:
  - "Emerging Technology"
  - "Facebook"
  - "Mobile"
  - "Texting"
---

# Behind Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase: A global appetite for texting

When [news broke this week](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-whatsapp-facebook-idUSBREA1I26B20140219) that Facebook was going to pay $19 billion to buy a text-messaging company called [WhatsApp](http://www.whatsapp.com/) that has about 450 million users around the world, many in the U.S. asked themselves “What’s *That*?” And, why was it worth so much money to a mega social media company like Facebook with 1.2 billion active monthly users?

[![](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/02/FT_14.02.20_WhatsApp-and-texting.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/02/13/emerging-nations-embrace-internet-mobile-technology/#texting-popular)

The fact that WhatsApp is better known outside of the U.S. was likely [one of the big reasons](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/02/20/5-key-reasons-whatsapp-is-worth-19bn-to-facebook/) for Facebook’s move. A median of 78% of mobile phone owners used their devices to send texts, according to a [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/02/13/emerging-nations-embrace-internet-mobile-technology/#texting-popular) conducted last spring in 24 emerging and developing nations. (One caveat is that while more than half of the people in each of the countries surveyed own a cell phone, ownership of app-capable smartphones [pales by comparison](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/02/13/emerging-nations-embrace-internet-mobile-technology/#smartphone-owner)).

Facebook is still the dominant social networking site, but its user growth in the U.S. [has slowed](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/). In listing reasons why WhatsApp is potentially worth so much to Facebook, Forbes noted that [Facebook has had difficulty getting traction](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/02/20/5-key-reasons-whatsapp-is-worth-19bn-to-facebook/) in developing countries, especially in Latin American, India and Asia.

In our spring survey of emerging nations, at least seven-in-ten cell phone owners said they use mobile devices to text in six of seven Latin American countries surveyed. And eight-in-ten or more cell phone owners said they texted in four of five Asian countries surveyed.