Facebook has now completed its $22 billion acquisition of mobile messaging app WhatsApp following EU's approval of the deal last Friday, Oct. 3.

European Commission Vice President in charge of competition policy, Joaquín Almunia, said, "Consumer communications apps keep European citizens connected and are becoming increasingly popular. While Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are two of the most popular apps, most people use more than one communications app."

Almunia added, "We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market. Consumers will continue to have a wide choice of consumer communications apps."

The initial price tag of the acquisition was just at $19 billion, but due to the increase in value of Facebook stocks in recent months, it ballooned to $22 billion.

"Facebook paid $4.59 billion in cash and 178 million shares of its stock for WhatsApp, as well 46 million of grants in restricted stock units for WhatsApp employees that will vest over a four year period. At Monday's opening Facebook share price of $77.17, the deal translates to roughly $21.8 billion," Reuters reported.

The deal will also give WhatsApp CEO and founder Jan Koum an estimated $2 billion in stock over a four-year period. He was also appointed to the Facebook board.

Facebook first reached an agreement to acquire WhatsApp in February with the goal of accelerating connectivity to the world and dominate the mobile messaging space.

In the official press release of Facebook, they dubbed "WhatsApp" as "a leading and rapidly growing real-time mobile messaging service" with over 450 million monthly users and 1 million daily new user registrations.

Today, WhatsApp app has more than 600 million active monthly users.

More than 70 WhatsApp employees will still continue to work on the company's headquarters in Mountain View California.