Why WhatsApp is worth $19 billion

[Commentary] Facebook might have actually gotten WhatsApp for cheap. In many ways, WhatsApp's users are just the kind of customers Facebook is looking for.

They are extremely active, sending more than 600 million photos a day -- more photos than Facebook users upload. A whopping 70% of WhatsApp users are active every day. By way of comparison, 62% of Facebook users are active daily. People around the world send 19 billion WhatsApp messages per day, including 200 million voice messages and 100 million videos. Crucially, WhatsApp has a strong presence internationally, particularly in Europe, India and Latin America. Those are regions where Facebook is trying to grow its base of users. WhatsApp and other mobile messaging services also are widely used by teens and tweens, a group that has notoriously been ditching Facebook for rival services, including text message services and Snapchat.

"Facebook users were complaining dearly about the lack of one-on-one personalized socializing and sharing, which WhatsApp clearly has been successful with," said Vidya Nath, research director at Frost & Sullivan.