October 2024 marked the 10-year anniversary of Facebook’s landmark acquisition of WhatsApp for $22 billion. Founded in 2009, WhatsApp allowed “unlimited free text-messaging and picture sending between users and [was] among the world’s most downloaded mobile apps.” At the time of the 2014 acquisition, WhatsApp had more than 400 million users across the globe and, according to the company, was adding 1 million new users each day.

A decade later, had the acquisition paid off?

At the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, this public-sourced case is taught in “Corporate Strategy,” a second-year elective MBA course. This case is typically taught in module 1: The Spectrum of Effective Corporate Strategies.