BRUSSELS - The EU on Thursday approved US tech giant Apple's plan to buy leading song-recognition app Shazam, saying the move would not reduce choice for music streaming consumers. "After thoroughly analysing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market." Apple announced the deal in December last year in a fresh effort to gain an edge in the music streaming market where Sweden-based Spotify dominates. Officials also looked at whether Apple Music's competitors would be harmed if Apple were to discontinue links from the Shazam app to rivals. Shazam only recently announced it had become profitable, thanks to advertising and steering traffic to other sites such as Spotify and Apple Music.

Source: Bangkok Post September 06, 2018 15:33 UTC