European Union regulators have given the green light for social media giant Facebook’s planned acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp, after a similar approval issued by US authorities in April. Although the European telecommunications industry has heavily opposed the deal, the regulators have given it an unconditional approval. The merger will seriously improve Facebook’s position on the international market, and give the company a very strong presence in mobile messaging.
The deal was approved by the European Commission, the Union’s antitrust authority. The EC has decided that the mobile messaging technologies used by the two companies – Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp – were not close competitors, and consumers will continue to have a wide choice of similar applications after the deal is finalized. The conclusion reached by the EC on this matter was that “it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market”, as declared by EU’s Commissioner responsible for competition cited by the Wall Street Journal. The usage of the two apps is different, and many users have both of them installed on their portable devices simultaneously.
Most telecommunications operators in the European Union have shown a strong opposition to the deal. According to them, the merger would give the two companies too much market power and increased control over the users’ data. The operators consider that “over-the-top” operators like WhatsApp, Skype or Netflix use their infrastructure to provide services similar to their own, and are still regulated – and especially taxed – differently.
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The European Commission has spent a great deal of time deciding whether the deal between the two companies would harm the competition on the market participants. Finally it has decided that – given the different nature and usage of the two messaging apps – it was not the case, and has approved the deal. Facebook currently has over 1.3 billion users, while WhatsApp has over 600 million.