Apple was hit with a €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) penalty from the European Union over an investigation into allegations it shut out music-streaming rivals, including Spotify Technology, on its platforms.

Brussels

Apple has been fined €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) by the European Union. The fine stems from an investigation into allegations that Apple unfairly restricted competition on its platforms, particularly affecting music-streaming rivals such as Spotify Technology.

The investigation focused on the claim that Apple's practices shut out other music-streaming services, potentially harming competition and limiting choices for consumers. The fine is a significant financial penalty, underscoring the severity of the EU's findings against Apple's business practices in this instance.



Apple hit with €1.8 billion E.U. fine 

What's interesting is, yes, the money, but when you're looking at Apple in terms of hundreds of billions they've got in cash, the money doesn't always matter. It's the precedent, and it's also what changes in behavior that the EU is demanding, right? Absolutely. I mean, this is a much larger fine, as Ed was outlining, than we'd anticipated. I mean, the reporting on this was 500 million euros, which was expected. This is almost four times that, right? So there is a sort of a bit of a shock there, and it's all about abuse on the iOS, on the app, on what sort of apps and what kind of competition Apple was allowing to have from other people. And the EU has said, come out and said it plainly, how Apple acted was illegal. They've been doing it for 10 years, and they need to remedy this immediately. There is some doubt, perhaps, that this will be enough money to change behavior. However, again, it's coming in quite above what everybody had anticipated. And Apple's saying that they're gonna appeal it, that the regulators haven't proven, because this is a market that has still grown. But Vestager herself was saying that something like 20% of consumers who might have adopted Spotify did not get the chance to even see it. So this is really what's going to the crosshairs into a week where there's a major piece of legislation on tech regulation coming out of Brussels. We just showed Apple's response to the fine and the announcement. They gave a kind of pointed quote saying that in the context of competition, they feel that today's decision protects one clear European company, which is a market leader in music streaming. They didn't name them, but they're talking about Spotify. What is the debate here, Oliver? You have the EU saying one thing and Apple basically saying the opposite. Yeah, well, Apple's saying, how can you say we've had such an effect on this when Spotify has done amazingly well, has done a huge amount of growth and has not really suffered according to them. Of course, Spotify does not see things quite the same way. And Margaret Vestager had mentioned this in the press conference that she held earlier today, saying that basically you don't know how much more growth was available here potentially to Europe. So listen, you're gonna hear this from Apple, you're gonna hear this from the United States, but here in Europe, I mean, they really wanna stake their claim on being the regulators and it comes again, the Digital Markets Act, which will come into force on Thursday. Think about it. We're talking about one company, the App Store and dealing with music streaming. Starting this Thursday, you have major tech companies that are gonna be touched by regulation that is trying to deal with all of this kind of competition in a major way. And that's not just in the App Store and it's not just with these sort of apps, it is all encompassing. And they really wanna set a strong message that you need to comply and that they are serious and that they are here for business. I mean, listen, when you look at this actual fine, 1.84 billion, right? They broke this down. When you look at the arithmetic, it's quite interesting. 1.84 billion. 1.8 of that is a lump sum that was put on top specifically because it was Apple. And why? Because it correlates to their annual revenue, 0.5%. So this is the EU saying that they're here and they're here for business.

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