The European Union has given its official stamp of approval to Apple’s acquisition of UK-based music discovery app Shazam.
While the deal was announced way back in December, it has been held up until now by an EU antitrust investigation, based on the popularity of Shazam and the amount of data it holds. This investigation was requested by seven European countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.
“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,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
She continued 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.”
A history with Apple
Shazam has been baked into Siri dating back to iOS 8, allowing iPhone and iPad users to easily identify songs by simply asking, “What song is this?” At one point in time, Shazam was valued at around $1 billion, although Apple reportedly wound up paying only around $400 million to acquire it.
At the time of its purchase, Apple issued a statement to say that:
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it’s used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
Source: Reuters
