Match Group (MTCH +2.21%) is reaching across the Pacific Ocean for a new acquisition. The company announced Tuesday that it has agreed to buy South Korea-based social media company Hyperconnect in a deal priced at $1.725 billion.
Hyperconnect operates two popular apps, Azar and Hakuna Live. The former is a live, one-to-one video chat app that translates voice and text for users who do not speak the same language. The latter is a group video and audio broadcast service.
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Match Group claims that Azar is the highest-grossing one-to-one chat app in the world. It has been downloaded more than 540 million times since its 2014 launch. The American company said Hakuna Live's downloads tally over 23 million since launching in 2019.
According to its owner-to-be, Hyperconnect earned over $200 million in revenue in 2020, which was 50% higher on a year-over-year basis. Match Group added that Hyperconnect is profitable, although it provided no specifics. It also didn't proffer any estimates as to how owning the Asian company will impact its fundamentals.
In its press release touting the acquisition, Match Group CEO Shar Dubey said, "We will leverage our deep bench of expertise to help accelerate Hyperconnect's already impressive growth, look to deploy Hyperconnect's technologies across our existing portfolio, and continue to invest in their growth."
Match Group expects the transaction to close in the second quarter, subject to approval from the relevant regulatory bodies. The company has the option to pay the $1.725 in a 50/50 mix of cash and stock, or entirely in cash. At the end of its most recently reported quarter, it held $739 million in cash.
