The Viber instant messaging application is in talks to be acquired for $300 million-$400 million by a leading instant messaging company from Asia, the Calcalist financial newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Viber is run from Cyprus by Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco and has development centers in Belarus and Israel. Company officials were not immediately available for comment.

Asia has several mobile chat applications such as Chinese WeChat, Japanese Line, and KakaoTalk from South Korea.

The company is funded from the pockets of its founders and several private investors from the United States, Calcalist said.

Viber has about 200 million registered users in 193 countries. It launched an instant messaging app for personal computers that allows users to make outgoing mobile calls to other Viber usersand to non-registered mobiles, making it a rival to Skype.

(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Steven Scheer)

(Source : Reuters)