The European Commission (EC) gave the green-light to the $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook, stating its investigation found that, after the transaction, the combined business “would continue to face sufficient competition”.

The EC noted that while it was able to analyse potential data concentration issues with regard to the impact on the online advertising market, “any privacy-related concerns flowing from the increased concentration of data within the control of Facebook as a result of the transaction do not fall within the scope of EU competition law”.

In a statement, Joaquin Almudia, VP in charge of competition policy, said: “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.”

The EC probe focused on three areas: consumer communication, social networking and online advertising.

With regard to communication services, the Commission noted that WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger “are not close competitors”, with the former being based on phone numbers and the latter closely related to profiles on the social network.

Noting that “users seem to use the two apps in different ways and many of them use the two apps simultaneously on the same mobile handset”, it also said that this is a “very dynamic market” and cited alternatives such as Line, Viber, iMessage, Telegram, WeChat and Google Hangouts.

And the Commission also found that the communications app market is “fast growing and characterised by short innovation cycles in which market positions are often reshuffled”; that launching a new app is “fairly easy and does not require significant time and investment”; and that “customers can and do use multiple apps at the same time and can easily switch from one to another”.

Moving onto social networking, the EC said that “boundaries are continuously evolving”. While “some third parties” suggested WhatsApp is already a social network that competes with Facebook, the watchdog said that the companies are “if anything, distant competitors in this area”.

Again, the presence of alternatives was noted, and that even if Facebook and WhatsApp look to more closely integrate services, “the net gain in terms of new members of the social network would be limited, since the user base of WhatsApp already overlaps to a significant extent with that of Facebook”.

Finally, in terms of online advertising, the Commission said that even if Facebook introduces advertising on WhatsApp or starts collecting WhatsApp user data, this would not raise competition concerns.

“This is because after the merger, there will continue to be a sufficient number of alternative providers to Facebook for the supply of targeted advertising, and a large amount of internet user data that are valuable for advertising purposes are not within Facebook’s exclusive control,” it wrote.