While all three services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their underlying messaging infrastructure will be unified, the media reported citing four unnamed sources involved in the effort.
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In addition, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end encryption — a significant step that protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation, the report said.
For Facebook, the changes provide a better chance of making money from Instagram and WhatsApp, which currently generate little revenue, even though they have vast numbers of users, according to the report. Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, while WhatsApp has 1.5 billion.