Last week, the Financial Times newspaper published that the European Commission is about to impose the first Competition fine in its history on Apple for allegedly violating community legislation on access to its music streaming services. The information indicated that the fine will be around 500 million euros and is expected to be announced in early February, after an antitrust investigation to determine whether Apple has used its own platform to favor its services over those of the competition. The Californian company considers that Brussels has been looking for a theory to sanction it for ten years, since Spotify denounced it.
The investigation investigates whether Apple prevented apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to accessing music subscriptions outside of the App Store. Spotify does not pay anything to Apple, since it does not have subscription options from its application, which does have a link that leads directly to the website where a user can subscribe to one of its modalities. According to the Financial Times, the European Commission "will say Apple's actions are illegal and go against the bloc's rules enforcing competition in the single market." The newspaper assures that the Community Executive will accuse the Cupertino company of "abusing its position of power and imposing anti-competitive commercial practices on its rivals" through "unfair commercial conditions."
Apple presents very different arguments. He points out that it is difficult to be a monopoly in a market, the European one, in which its streaming service, Apple Music, is in third position (11%), behind Spotify (58%) and Prime Music (20%). and ahead of YouTube Music (8%) and Deezer (3%). The apple company alleges that Spotify, like 88% of iOS (iPhone) developers, does not pay it anything, although an important part of its success is due to the tools and technology that Apple makes available to all iOS developers. for free in the App Store.
Spotify's claim, says an Apple spokesperson, "is about trying to get unlimited access to all of Apple's tools without paying anything for the value that Apple provides." For this reason, the apple company considers that the complainant has collaborated very closely with the European Commission. Apple has recorded that Spotify officials have met more than 65 times during this investigation with the Brussels Executive since June 2013, when the latter filed its complaint.
Apple sources indicate that the Commission has been searching for a theory of anticompetitive behavior that works for ten years and that during that time they have tried to present three different cases that have ultimately changed. The accusation that remains pending and for which she would supposedly be fined is for the anti-circumvention rules, which alleges that iOS users cannot find how to subscribe to music streaming services outside of the app. The apple company believes that there is no theory that explains anti-competitive behavior in light of how the market has grown.
Throughout the procedure, Apple believes that no evidence of harm to consumers has been found. The European music streaming market has grown from 25 to 160 million subscribers, with a growth rate of 27%. In their rejection of the accusations of anti-competitive behavior, Apple sources observe that the Commission's procedure could serve to consolidate the position that Spotify has as a market leader with a long distance over the rest.
