Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), officially received today the approval to buy the Shazam application, the European authorities concluding that there is no danger for the competition. The European authorities investigated the acquisition of Shazam by Apple for several months before reaching this conclusion, quite logical, considering the situation.
Apple announced in the spring that it wants to buy the Shazam company, surprising many people with its intention, wanting to spend several hundred million dollars on the European company. Considering that Shazam was a service that recommended competing services of Apple, the European authorities were afraid that the sale could affect them.
Apple Gets APPROVAL to BUY Shazam
European authorities have also concluded that the data Shazam has on Apple's competing streaming services is not sufficient to contribute to Apple's disruption of their business. This was as clear as can be anyway because Shazam deals with something other than affiliation for audio streaming services.
"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. Shazam has a limited importance as an entry point to the music streaming services of Apple Music's competitors. Therefore, the Commission concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it."
Apple will spend several hundred million dollars to buy Shazam, Siri already having integration with the service to recognize songs we don't know. It is not yet known what kind of new services Apple could offer based on Shazam, but there are many others that are based on its functionality, including some of Apple's competitors.
