EU approves Apple's acquisition of Shazam

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

The European Commission has approved on Thursday the proposed acquisition of Shazam by global technology giant Apple.

"The Commission concluded that the merger would not adversely affect competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it," it said in a statement.

According to the Commission, the decision followed an in-depth investigation of Apple's proposed acquisition of Shazam.

"Apple operates 'Apple Music', which is the second largest music streaming service in Europe, after Spotify," it said. "Shazam offers a leading music recognition application ('app') in the European Economic Area and worldwide."

Margrethe Vestager, the commissioner for competition policy, said in the statement that 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, to ensure they do not restrict competition," she said.

"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," Vestager added.

Shazam is a U.K. based developer and distributor of music recognition applications while its revenues come from online advertising plus commissions earned on referrals of users to digital music streaming and download services, such as Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer, the Commission noted.

The U.S.-based Apple, which has a very large product range including technology devices and software, became the first company to ever reach a market value of $1 trillion last month.