The Japanese online shopping firm Rakuten has bought free call and text message app Viber for $900m.
“Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts,” said Rakuten Chairman and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani in a statement.
Rakuten, Inc. is a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo, Japan.
Viber Media is a Cyprus-based company with development centers in Belarus and Israel.Its founder and CEO is entrepreneur Talmon Marco.Viber allows subscribers to make free calls, send instant messages and share files over the internet.
Viber has about 200 million registered users in 193 countries.