Facebook to gain more subscribers and expand its mobile services in the Middle East

App Fact Smartphones

21 Feb 2014

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Dubai: WhatsApp is growing fast in the region due to the strong growth in mobile phone and smartphone penetration rates, industry experts told Gulf News on Thursday.

The world’s biggest social networking company said on Wednesday it will pay $19 billion (Dh69.7 billion) to acquiring WhatsApp - paying $12 billion in Facebook stock and $4 billion in cash for WhatsApp.

“Apparently, Facebook will gain more subscribers and expand its mobile services in the Middle East. It makes sense for Facebook to purchase WhatsApp, definitely in the Middle East, as the penetration rates of mobile phones in certain Gulf countries have crossed 100 per cent,” Fadi Salem, the Director of the Governance and Innovation Program, and Fellow, at the Mohammad Bin Rashid School of Government, told Gulf News.

Facebook had 945 million monthly active users worldwide who used mobile products and 1.23 billion monthly active users in 2013.

According to the TRA’s (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) latest statistics, mobile phone penetration in the UAE is currently at 190.8 per cent and smartphone penetration is 73.8 per cent. Active mobile subscriptions as of November 2013 stood at 15.87 million.

Salem said that Facebook has around 65 million users in the Arab world but we don’t have an estimate on WhatsApp but it is one of the highly-used apps on multiple platforms.

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