Mobile messaging startup Snapchat has rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook Inc that would have valued the company at $3 billion or more, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday.
Facebook representatives reached out to Snapchat in recent weeks to discuss the all-cash deal, which would have been Facebook’s largest acquisition ever, the report said, citing anonymous sources.
Snapchat, which allows consumers to send smartphone photos which automatically disappear after a few seconds, has proven popular among teenage users.
The report of Facebook’s interest in Snapchat comes a couple of weeks after Facebook, the world’s No. 1 Internet social network, acknowledged that it was seeing a decline in daily use by young teenagers in the US, although it said overall use by teenagers was stable.