Spotify CEO Wants EU To Penalize Apple For Defying Regulations

Spotify Technology’s SPOT CEO, Daniel Ek, escalated a four-year battle with Apple Inc AAPL for allegedly flouting the European Union’s Big Tech rules.

Ek snubbed the iPhone maker’s attempts to align with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Instead, he blamed Apple for allegedly exploiting its influence to regain its compliance with the DMA. Ek challenged Europe to enforce the law, Bloomberg cited from an interview.

Also Read: Spotify Is Still One Of Top 4 Best Ideas For 2025: Analyst

In Brussels for talks with European Commission officials working on implementing the DMA against Apple, Ek urged enforcing the law.

Ek is now canvassing the EU to force Apple to allow alternative app stores on the iPhone reasonably. The EU competition law violation could amount to a penalty of up to 10% of Apple’s global annual revenue.

However, the bloc also risks provoking U.S. President Donald Trump’s retaliatory tariffs against such penalties.

After Spotify complaint, the EU regulator slapped Apple with a 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) penalty in 2024 for preventing music-streaming apps from informing users of cheaper deals away from the App Store.

Rosenblatt’s Barton Crockett, Morgan Stanley’s Benjamin Swinburne, and Goldman Sachs’ Eric Sheridan hailed Spotify as the clear global leader in audio streaming after its fourth-quarter report. They noted that the market would pay a premium price for Spotify’s subscriber model’s durability and visibility, its vast scale and market leadership, and successful execution, as it does for Apple. 

Spotify Stock Prediction For 2025

Equity research can be a valuable source of information for learning about a company's fundamentals. Analysts create financial models based on the fundamentals and expected future earnings of a company to arrive at a price target and recommendation for the stock.

Shares of Spotify Technology have an average 1-year price target of $636.15, representing an expected upside of 5.27%.

Because of differences in assumptions, analysts can arrive at very different price targets and recommendations. No analysts have bearish recommendations on Spotify Technology, while 17 analysts have bullish ratings. The street high price target from JP Morgan is $730.0, while the street low from Cantor Fitzgerald is $480.0.

Price actions: SPOT stock was up 2.80% at $605.06 at the last check on Wednesday. AAPL was down 2.41%.

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