Rakuten Viber Media buys $ 900 million - Digital Zone

Home> Mobility> Viber Media Rakuten buys $ 900 million

February 14, 2014

Viber Media, society designer phone applications and online messaging just bought this Friday, February 14th by the Japanese group Rakuten, a specialist in online trading, for an

amount of € 661 million. Rakuten has doubled its net profit in 2013 to € 320 million and wants to grow a little more. The Japanese group has yet again expanded its range of activities that are already in the mall finance through ebooks or bookings.

Rakuten is the parent company of PriceMinister in hex and is interested in Viber, a free calls and substantially identical to Skype instant messaging service, available on Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile OS (Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, S40, Symbian and Bada). Viber, based in Cyprus, has 300 million users in 193 countries worldwide. By comparing the number of Viber users and the amount of the transaction by Rakuten, the Japanese group Viber subscriber pays $ 3. Viber company was set up two years ago and is now owned by three shareholders up to 79%. The remaining 21% is shared by eight other shareholders, less important, including employees of Viber. In 2013, Rakuten realized a turnover of 3.8 billion euros (518.7 billion yen).

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