According to Techcrunch, Apple and Swedish music streaming service Spotify are involved in a very early stage discussion about a possible acquisition by the former.
Techcrunch has received an e-mail tip off from an anonymous source which read, "Apple, Inc. (AAPL) in negotiations to acquire Spotify," As soon as they received it, they decided to dig a little deeper and claims to have confirmed that the two are in ”on and off” discussions about an acquisition. They add that “No firm price has been offered, no term sheet tabled”.
This is a very interesting development because as recently as last month, Apple was trying to derail the launch of Spotify in the US. Rumors were flying in thick and fast about Apple allegedly convincing record labels that Spotify's business model would be a loss making proposition.
Soon after this, there were rumors of Apple coming up with its own music subscription service. Now we wonder what changed in a span of a month for Apple to become suddenly interested in Spotify.
Another interesting bit that Techcrunch adds is the fact that Google and Spotify were almost on the verge of a deal last year. The deal, worth over $1 billion however never went through because Spotify demanded an extra $800 million “walk away fee” which Google wasn't interested in paying.
Meanwhile, Spotify has denied having any acquisition talks with Apple. Spotify's spokesman Jim Butcher has issued the following statement:
"We wouldn't normally comment on this kind of speculation, but we wanted to make it clear that we have absolutely no intention of selling Spotify."
Of late Apple has been involved in a lot of rumors related to acquisitions – and why not? With cash reserves of over $50 billion, the company has enough resources to acquire any decently sized business. Last time we had heard of Apple trying to acquire or at least pick up a stake in Facebook – and now we have Spotify.
What do you think about Apple's possible Spotify acquisition?
[via Techcrunch, CNet]
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