Ondrej Holzman Apple said during its latest financial results announcement that it expects to complete its acquisition of Beats Electronics within the next quarter, and now it has taken another successful step. The acquisition was approved by the European Commission.
The European Commission said the deal met all the rules, adding that Apple and Beats combined did not have a significant enough stake in either the streaming industry or the headphone market that their merger would materially affect competition.
The European Commission is understandably only interested in the European market, where Apple/Beats competes with a number of brands such as Bose, Sennheiser and Sony in the field of headphones. A number of streaming services also operate on European soil, for example Spotify, Deezer or Rdio. The European Commission did not have to consider iTunes Radio and Beats Music, which so far only operate outside of Europe, making the acquisition all the easier to approve.
At the same time, it was important for the European Commission that Apple does not remove other similar third-party services, such as Spotify or Rdio, by absorbing Beats and the Beats Music service from the App Store.
He bought Beats for three billion dollars he announced In May, in addition to the already mentioned headphones and music streaming service, Apple also gained significant reinforcements to its team in the form of Jimmy Iovino and Dr. Dre. However, Apple has not yet completely won - the acquisition still has to be approved in the United States. This is expected to happen in the coming months.
