Personally, I'm not sure that it does provide Facebook anything - same for Instagram. That said, there is an argument I think could be made as follows: Faceboo

Personally, I'm not sure that it does provide Facebook anything - same for Instagram. That said, there is an argument I think could be made as follows: Facebook (and Google) is essentially about data. The more information they have on a given person, the more information they have period, the more valuable they are. This value is to advertisers and marketers of course (the real "customers") but also to end users. WhatsApp is $19 billion worth of data about people in places where Facebook doesn't have a lot of data. Countries like India, for example. I don't think Facebook penetration is nearly as significant there as it is in the US (though I do not have a statistic on hand for that ATM). So the argument is that WhatsApp gives Facebook a foot in the door to more information on more places at once. Just like Google gets data on what people want from their videos from YouTube, Instagram gives Facebook more information on what people do with their images and how they share them. Facebook already does these things - messaging and image sharing - but it could be argued that Facebook will be able to do them better/more profitably/at least in a more aware way if it studies how it works for Instagram and WhatsApp. Again, I don't really see the point myself - but that's an argument that could be made.