英语听力：澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2014-02-23（在线收听） |
Well, analysts say the staggering 19 billion dollars Facebook has paid for Whatsapps demonstrates its drive to remain innovated and fresh. The price, which will be paid in cash and stock, has stunned the Silicon Valley as Facebook moves to assert its dominance in response to the explosion in mobile social apps. The figure dwarfs Facebook's three-billion-dollar tilt at Snapchat and the one billion it paid for Instegram. “And this is actually the biggest tech deal bar one I think since the dot com boom. So we are back in deal mania over here in Silicon Valley.”
Whatsapp has 450 million users and the acquisition is seen as an attempt by the Facebook to engage the youth market which has been losing over recent quarters. It's also focused on competing with messaging services in Asia.
“So this is a very hot market at the moment. There have been many...ah.. different of these chat apps popping up. There's WeChat in China. There's Line in Japan and..ah..other parts of Asia. Ah...but Whatsapp is by far the biggest of all them...which is...why Facebook has paid such a huge price.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg says he's confident Whatsapp will reach a billion users.
Well, let's take a look at the international markets now.
And when the markets did close in Europe a couple of hours ago, London's FSTE 100 was lower. The Dax and Euro also lost some ground. And America's market has closed. The Dow just lowered 0.2 percent. And the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also finished lower. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/azabcxw/2014/248501.html |