Japan's Rakuten, an e-commerce business, announced the acquisition of Viber Media for the amount of 900 million dollars.
According to Rakuten's announcement, Viber is the "perfect complement" to the company's digital strategy, which also includes the acquisition of a number of other companies technology. The acquisitions included in the specific plan include the tablet manufacturing company, Kobo and the video site, Viki.
The acquisition of Viber, according to Rakuten, is another step for the Japanese company to become the world's leading Internet service provider. It is also an attempt by the company to penetrate a new market where multiple digital content can be combined with e-commerce services and financial services platforms already offered by Rakuten.
Viber Media, an Israeli-based company based in Cyprus, provides messaging services and voice communication, being one of the main competitors of Skype, which has been acquired by Microsoft. The company has, according to November 2013 data, about 300 millions registered users, worldwide.
The agreement to acquire Viber from Rakuten is of particular interest since, especially in Asian markets, the applications messaging have turned into "carrier" platforms for a wide range of additional services, including e-commerce. There is also the possibility that Viber could be used to transport entertainment services, via Viki or even pre-installed on Kobo tablets.
The news of the takeover comes just two days after Viber's categorical denial of publications that wanted the company to be in a takeover deal by an "Asian" company against the amount of 300-400 million dollars
