European Union competition regulators are set to approve Apple’s estimated $400 million (£309.9m) bid for Shazam.
The tech giant announced one of its largest deals late last year. But the acquisition of the UK audio recognition app became the subject of a European Commission investigation in April amid concerns it might give Apple an unfair advantage in the streaming market.
The EU regulators’ probe also considered the possibility of Apple halting referrals from Shazam to rivals of Apple Music.
The Commission took over the case from national EU regulators following a request from seven European countries. The EU executive is scheduled to make its formal decision by September 18, though according to Reuters the deal has been passed.
As Apple attempts to catch up with Amazon and Google with the belated launch of its HomePod smart speaker, Shazam’s song identification software could help its efforts to develop a frictionless service. Spotify has recently signed a long-term deal with Apple rival Samsung.
Shazam has a wealth of music discovery data that Apple could draw upon to give it an edge over rivals. The voice recognition app already interacts with Apple’s Siri AI, so Apple could further develop that functionality to enable the HomePod to compete with Amazon’s market-leading Echo range.
There’s also speculation about the possible role of Shazam with Augmented Reality and smart devices.
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