Apple’s acquisition of Beats has a couple of industries speculating over what the future beholds. Beats was not just in the business of selling fashionable headphones, but also in the business of music streaming, so we do understand Apple’s desire in snatching such a unique company in order to boost its current offerings. If you’re wondering what competitors are thinking about this whole business transaction, let’s go through a recent interview with Spotify’s CEO.
Daniel Ek, the CEO and co-founder of the streaming music giant Spotify was recently interviewed for Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech. Even though he does consider Apple to be competitor even before the Beats acquisition, he mainly focuses on expressing that Apple is really looking to become a lifestyle company. Jimmy and Dre are a perfect fit for the company’s music plans, just like former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts now runs Apple’s retail stores, and Patrick Pruniaux was hired from Tag Heuer for the iWatch project. He states that:
“My belief, rightly or wrongly, is I think Apple is becoming more and more of a lifestyle company, and they’re thinking a lot more about how they can become a lifestyle company.”
He also states that: “So if you look at some of the executives that they’ve hired, pretty much all of them come out of the fashion… I can’t think of a consumer electronics company that’s more associated to lifestyle and fashion than Beats.”
In addition to:
“My perception is although they like the streaming part, I don’t think that was primarily it. I think it was because of Jimmy and Dre and I think it was because of Apple wanting to associate itself more to a lifestyle business, and that’s where they think this is going and that Jimmy and Dre are great representatives of that.”
Do you agree with Ek’s statements? Do you feel that Apple wants to do a bigger effort competing in the fashion space than in the music space, or both? Let us know in the comments.
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