EU watchdog has given its nod to Apple’s £286m takeover of UK-based music app Shazam.
The deal, announced in December last year, would help the iPhone maker better compete with industry leader Spotify. Shazam identifies songs when a smartphone is pointed at an audio source.
“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.
“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,” she added.
The European Commission had carried out an in-depth investigation of the proposed deal following a request by several member states.
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