Back in December 2017, a report claimed that Apple was in the process of acquiring the music discovery app, Shazam. A couple of days after these rumors began, the Cupertino tech giant confirmed the report itself, saying that the deal was worth $400 million, substantially less than the last valuation of Shazam, which put it at $1 billion.
In February 2018, the European Commission announced that it would probe the deal, a process which it has now completed, giving Apple the go-ahead for the acquisition.
As reported by Reuters, the transaction has been approved by the European Union. EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, had the following to say regarding the acquisition:
After thoroughly analyzing Shazam’s user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market.
Data is key in the digital economy. We must therefore carefully review transactions which lead to the acquisition of important sets of data, including potentially commercially sensitive ones.
One of the primary reasons for the purchase was that it would improve Apple’s streaming service and make it more, and perhaps unfairly, competitive against services like Spotify, the industry leader in the music streaming sector. It previously suggested that Apple could change the service to stop giving referrals to rivals of Apple Music, which could damage their businesses. There's no word yet on when Apple will finalize the deal, but it will probably happen soon, considering that the EU probe was the last major obstacle in the transaction.
Source: Reuters
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