Facebook To Buy WhatsApp for $16 Billion

Facebook said on Wednesday that it agreed to buy WhatsApp for about $16 billion to expand into the fast-growing mobile messaging market.

Facebook is paying $4 billion in cash and $12 billion in stock for WhatsApp, a service that has 450 million monthly users and is adding more than 1 million new users a day.

"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement announcing the deal.