Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten Inc said Friday it will
buy Israeli-owned instant messaging app provider Viber Media Ltd for $900
million, hoping to tap the company's rapidly expanding business in emerging
markets.
Rakuten said the purchase of Viber Media, run from Cyprus by
Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco, will add 300 million users to its existing
200 million users.
Bloomberg quoted billionaire Rakuten owner Hiroshi Mikitani
as saying that the acquisition is expected to be completed next month.
According to Bloomberg, Mikitani believes that e-commerce will become "a
more communication-based transaction.”
A statement from Mikitani on Friday praised Viber as
"the most consistently high quality and convenient messaging and VoIP
experience available."
"Simply put, Viber understands how people actually want
to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all
fronts," he said. "This makes Viber the ideal total consumer
engagement platform for Rakuten as we seek to bring our deep understanding of
the consumer to vast new audiences through our dynamic ecosystem of Internet
Services.”
A statement from Viber CEO Talmon Marco also highlighted the
potential for instant messaging in the world of internet commerce
“This combination presents an amazing opportunity for Viber
to enhance our rapid user growth in both existing and new markets," Marco
said. "Sharing similar aspirations with Rakuten, our vision is to be the
world’s No.1 communications platform and our combination with Rakuten is an
important step in that direction.”
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