Facebook將以190億美元收購WhatsApp

Facebook Inc. agreed to buy messaging company WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock, a blockbuster transaction that dwarfs the already sky-high prices that other startups have been able to recently command.

Facebook Inc.已同意以190億美元現金加股票收購即時通訊應用提供商WhatsApp。這一鉅額收購交易引起市場轟動，也令其他初創公司近期賣出的已經極高的價格相形見絀。

The 55-employee company, which acts as a kind of replacement for text messaging, has seen its use more than double in the past nine months to 450 million monthly users. That makes its service more popular than Twitter Inc., the widely used microblogging service which has about 240 million users and is currently valued at about $30 billion.

WhatsApp有55名僱員，該公司的產品相當於一種手機短信替代品。過去九個月中，該公司每月用戶數增長超過一倍，達到4.5億。這意味着該公司的服務比推特(Twitter Inc.)的服務更受歡迎。推特是一種被廣泛使用的微博服務，用戶數約爲2.4億，該公司目前的市值約300億美元。

The transaction, which includes $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp's founders and employees over four years, ranks as the largest-ever purchase of a company backed by venture capital. Besides making its founders billionaires, the deal marks an enormous windfall for Sequoia Capital, the only venture firm that invested in WhatsApp.

該交易是迄今爲止規模最大的針對風投支持企業的收購交易。該交易的內容包括在四年內向WhatsApp創始人和僱員授予30億美元的受限股票單位。該交易除了將令WhatsApp的創始人成爲億萬富翁外，還將給唯一投資該公司的風投公司Sequoia Capital帶來鉅額收益。

The deal price also easily outranks any acquisition of startups in recent years, including Facebook's purchase of photo-sharing app Instagram for more than $1 billion in 2012, and, a year earlier, Microsoft Corp.'s $8.5 billion buy of video-calling company Skype.

該交易的收購價也遠高於最近幾年任何初創公司獲得的收購價格，比如Facebook在2012年出資超過10億美元收購照片分享應用商Instagram的交易，以及此前一年微軟(Microsoft Corp.)出資85億美元收購視頻電話公司Skype的交易。

What isn't clear is how much revenue WhatsApp makes -- the company declined to comment on its sales. It charges 99 cents a year after a one year of free use, and doesn't carry ads. On a conference call, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said he doesn't think ads are the right way to monetize messaging systems.

目前還不清楚WhatApp的收入情況，該公司對其銷售方面的問題不予置評。該公司對其產品提供一年的免費使用，一年之後收取99美分的年費，其產品不搭載廣告。Facebook首席執行長馬克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在一次電話會議中表示，他不認爲廣告是利用即時通訊系統獲利的正確方式。

Beyond revenue, the deal could help shelter the social network against the shifting tastes of teen users, some of whom have grown cool to it, and bolster its position internationally. WhatsApp is particularly popular outside of the U.S.

除了獲得相關收入之外，這項交易也有助於Facebook避免青少年用戶興趣變化對該公司業績的影響，因爲有些青少年已經開始厭煩Facebook了。WhatsApp在美國以外特別流行。

The transaction comes in the wake of Facebook's failed attempt to purchase another messaging service, Snapchat, for $3 billion last year. Both Snapchat and WhatsApp are popular with younger users, a demographic Facebook has been struggling to attract in recent years, according to surveys. Facebook said in an earnings call in October that some younger teens were using the service less.

在達成這項交易前，Facebook去年曾試圖以30億美元收購另一家即時通訊服務商Snapchat，但交易未能達成。調查顯示，Snapchat和WhatsApp在年輕用戶中都非常受歡迎，而這一用戶羣體正是Facebook近年來在努力爭取的。Facebook曾在去年10月的一次財報會上表示，一些青少年對Facebook的使用有所減少。

Even by the get-big-fast standards of Silicon Valley, WhatsApp's story is remarkable. The company, founded in 2009 by Ukrainian Jan Koum and American Brian Acton, reached 450 million users faster than any company in history, wrote Jim Goetz, a partner at investor Sequoia Capital.

即便是按照硅谷“迅速做大”的標準，WhatsApp的發展速度也令人驚歎。紅杉資本(Sequoia Capital)的合夥人戈茨(Jim Goetz)寫道，WhatsApp用戶數量達到4.5億的速度要快於歷史上的任何公司。該公司是由烏克蘭人Jan Koum和美國人阿克頓(Brian Acton)在2009年創立的。

Facebook had fewer than 150 million users after its fourth year, one third that of WhatsApp in the same time period. WhatsApp processes 50 billion messages a day, Mr. Goetz wrote, yet has only 32 engineers and does not employ any marketing or public-relations people.

Facebook在成立四年後的用戶數量還不足1.5億，僅相當於WhatsApp同期用戶數量的三分之一。戈茨稱，WhatsApp現在每天處理的訊息量達500億條，但該公司只有32名工程師，而且沒有聘請任何市場營銷或公關人員。

WhatsApp built its business on the idea of offering instant messaging without the fees that carriers often charge.

WhatsApp建立公司業務的理念是，提供一種無需向運營商支付費用的即時通訊服務。

The company goes out of its way to remain private, offering little in the way of information to government agencies trying to track people. Once delivered, messages are deleted from the company's servers. Privacy was particularly important to Mr. Koum, who grew up in a communist country with a secret police.

WhatsApp想方設法保護用戶的隱私，幾乎不向試圖追蹤用戶行動的政府機構提供任何信息。在使用WhatsApp時，訊息一旦發送出去，就會被該公司的服務器刪除。Koum是在一個有祕密警察的共產主義國家長大的，隱私對他來說尤爲重要。

'Jan's childhood made him appreciate communication that was not bugged or tape,' Mr. Goetz wrote. 'When he arrived in the U.S. as a 16-year-old immigrant living on food stamps, he had the extra incentive of wanting to stay in touch with his family in Russia and the Ukraine.'

戈茨寫道，Koum的童年經歷使他嚮往往那種不被監聽和錄音的通訊；他16歲移民美國，只能靠食品救濟券生活，那時他非常渴望與在俄羅斯和烏克蘭的家人保持聯繫。

The transaction came together quickly. Mr. Zuckerberg said he and Mr. Koum first discussed the deal on a Sunday evening less than two weeks ago. WhatsApp, based in Mountain View, Calif., will stay in its headquarters and continue to operate independently of its new parent company, which is based nearby in Menlo Park.

這筆收購是在很短時間內達成的。扎克伯格表示，他與Koum首次討論這筆交易是在不到兩週前的一個週日的晚上。WhatsApp位於加州芒廷維尤，而Facebook的總部位於門洛帕克附近。在交易完成後，WhatsApp將繼續留在芒廷維尤的總部，並獨立於母公司Facebook運營。

The demographics of WhatsApp's users were likely a draw for Facebook, said Rebecca Lieb, analyst at Altimeter Group. 'This is clearly also a play at securing their base of younger users who are married to text messaging,' she said.

Altimeter Group的一位分析師表示，WhatsApp的用戶羣可能是吸引Facebook的原因，這筆交易顯然也是爲了確保該公司的年輕用戶基礎，因爲這部分用戶已經離不開即時信息的使用。

Equally enticing is the percentage of WhatsApp users who log onto the service at least once a day. That figure sits at 70%, even higher than Facebook's 61%. Such 'engagement' percentages are valuable because the more users interact with a service, the more ads or other products can be sold to them.

同樣具有吸引力的是至少每天都使用WhatsApp服務的用戶百分比，該比率爲70%，甚至高於Facebook的61%。這樣的“活躍度”非常有價值，因爲與服務互動的用戶數量越多，可以銷售給他們的廣告和其他產品就越多。

'Facebook's always working to find new reasons for people to come back,' said Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliot. 'Facebook is desperate to keep people coming back every day.'

Forrester Research分析師埃利奧特(Nate Elliot)稱，Facebook總是在尋找讓用戶再次使用其服務的新理由，該公司迫切希望用戶能夠每天都登錄其網站。

Instagram, a hit among teens, has also helped Facebook hedge against any loss of younger users. Instagram added a direct messaging service last year, giving Facebook control of yet another mobile messaging product on the market. The service only had about 15 million users at the time of its acquisition.

在青少年中大受歡迎的Instagram也幫助Facebook預防了年輕用戶的流失。Instagram去年添加了一項直接通訊服務，Facebook由此掌控了市場上又一個移動通訊產品。在剛被收購時Instagram僅擁有大約1,500萬用戶。

On a per-user basis, Facebook is paying around $40 apiece for WhatsApp, roughly in line with the amount that other social media companies that have been acquired in recent years.

根據用戶數量來計算，Facebook對WhatsApp每位用戶的估值在40美元左右，基本和近些年被收購的其他社交媒體公司的情況差不多。

Other figures disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing show other metrics that made it particularly attractive to Facebook. WhatsApp users every day upload 600 million photos, for example, and send 100 million video messages every day.

從一份提交給美國證券交易委員會(Securities and Exchange Commission)的文件披露的其他數據中也能看出這筆交易對Facebook來說尤爲具有吸引力。舉例來說，WhatsApp用戶每日上傳6億張照片，每日的視頻信息發送量達到1億條。

On the conference call, Messrs. Zuckerberg and Koum said it was important the company operate separately and retain the mentality of a startup, a strategy Mr. Zuckerberg said has worked with Instagram. 'What we found is it really can work,' he said.

扎克伯格和Koum在一個電話會議上稱，保持WhatsApp運營的獨立性及其作爲初創公司所具有的精神非常重要，扎克伯格稱這一策略在Instagram非常成功。他表示，我們發現這樣的策略很有效。

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, he said, has 'gotten a huge amount of value on being able to use Facebook infrastructure,' while remaining separate.

扎克伯格稱，可以使用Facebook的基礎設施讓Instagram創始人希斯特羅姆(Kevin Systrom)收穫了巨大的價值。

Mr. Koum will join Facebook's board of directors. He said the company does not plan to add advertising, sticking instead to a subscription model.

Koum將加入Facebook董事會。他表示，WhatsApp仍將維持零廣告策略，繼續推行訂閱模式。

WhatsApp, despite its surging popularity in recent years, has been wary of raising capital and entertaining suitors. Mr. Koum told The Wall Street Journal last December that WhatsApp has 'no plans to sell, IPO, exit,' or get new funding.

雖然近幾年WhatsApp的受歡迎度飆升，但該公司在對待融資以及收購興趣方面一直很謹慎。Koum去年12月份向《華爾街日報》(The Wall Street Journal)表示，WhatsApp沒有出售、上市、退出或籌資的計劃。