Late last year Apple announced that they would be acquiring music recognition app Shazam. Given that Shazam is already integrated into iOS via Siri, we suppose this acquisition made sense. It also seemed like a relatively straightforward acquisition but it seems that Apple is running in some obstacles.
The EU has recently launched an investigation into Apple’s acquisition of Shazam to see whether or not the acquisition could result in less options for consumers. Back in February, it was revealed that the EU would be assessing the situation based on the concerns filed by various countries, but now it looks like an investigation will be made.
The concern is that apparently Apple and Spotify get about 1 million clicks per day through the Shazam app. In the event that Apple does acquire Shazam, they have the option of directing users to only its services and skip Spotify entirely, resulting in Spotify losing a huge portion of traffic which could also be potential customers.
Of course whether or not the outcome will be a negative one for Apple remains to be seen, because it is possible that the investigation could result in findings that suggest that the acquisition would result in anti-competitive behavior, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, iOS, Legal, Music and Shazam.