http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-21/wireless-carriers-shrug-off-whatsapps-33-billion-impact#r=rss
The use of "WhatsApp" has only grown. WhatsApp is a smartphone application that is free, and costs ninety nine cents after one year of use, and allows for its users to text (sms) to others. This application will do to texting what Skype did to the video-messaging world. Although the consumers are much more happy, and get to talk more with more people, many telephone companies are hurt. According to this article, the application cost carriers around thirty three billion dollars in losses just this past year. It is also estimated that by 2016 the overall "damage" will succumb to fifty four billion dollars in losses. This application's effect and more importantly power is what prompted Facebook to acquire it for nineteen billion dollars. The stock market was much affected by this trade. On that day, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Vodaphone, Twitter, and Blackberry both had a rise in shares and a rise in trading. Vodaphone even completed the sale of its Verizon stock (forty five percent of the company) on February twenty one. No one knows the future of our communication platform, but it is clear WhatsApp is onto something, but not long before Facebook or other powerful company buy them off.
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