Rakuten buys messaging company Viber for $900m
Rakuten has acquired messaging and VoIP company Viber for a total consideration of $900 million.
The acquisition represents another bold for Rakuten into the digital content space, having already bought Kobo, Wuaki.tv, and Viki.
Viber, which has 300m users, allows users to send free text messages, stickers, photos, videos and doodles, share locations anywhere in the world, make free calls and communicate with Push-To-Talk.
Viber CEO and Founder, Talmon Marco, said: “Rakuten is one of the world’s most important Internet companies. It is truly dominant in its home market of Japan and has been rapidly expanding globally. This combination presents an amazing opportunity for Viber to enhance our rapid user growth in both existing and new markets.
“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.”
Rakuten sees the company look to penetrate new markets, growing its e-commerce and financial services platforms.
Rakuten chairman and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, commented: “Viber has introduced a great sticker market and has tremendous potential as a gaming platform. Simply put, Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts. 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.”
Goldman, Sachs & Co and White & Case LLP were the financial and legal advisors for Viber.