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Japan’s largest online retailer Rakuten Inc said on Friday it would purchase messaging app provider Viber Media Ltd for $900 million in a move that would more than double its number of registered users.
Rakuten “decided to acquire Viber to strengthen its global platform through the use of Viber’s range of customers in the Japanese company’s e-commerce and digital contents services,” company chairman Hiroshi Mikitani said in a statement.
Rakuten, the owner of Play.com, has 200 million users while Cyprus-based Viber has 300 million members around the world.
“Viber’s globally popular messaging service is seeing a rapid increase in numbers of registered users” especially in emerging markets, Mikitani said.
“And this will strengthen our digital strategy,” he added.
In 2012, Rakuten spent $315 million to purchase Canada’s eReader business Kobo and also acquired Wuaki.tv, a Spanish streaming and video on-demand business.
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