EU approves Facebook's bid for Whatsapp

Both companies offer applications for smartphones, so-called "apps", which allow consumers to communicate by sending text, photo, voice and video messages. Such business has grabbed much market share from telecom industry, which oppose the merger deal strongly.

The Commission found that Facebook and WhatsApp are not close competitors and that consumers would continue to have a wide choice of alternative consumer communications apps after the transaction, saying the investigation showed that the merged entity would continue to face sufficient competition after the merger.

"While Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are two of the most popular apps, most people use more than one communications app. We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market," Competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.

As regards consumer communications services, the Commission sees this is a very dynamic market with several competing apps available on the market, such as Line, Viber, iMessage, Telegram, WeChat and Google Hangouts.

According to public data, Facebook has 1.3 billion users worldwide, 300 million of which are users of the Facebook Messenger app. WhatsApp has 600 million users worldwide, Xinhua reported.