The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) recently decided to not oppose Meta’s proposed acquisition of Kustomer.
Meta, previously known as Facebook, has shifted its brand to establish a new age digital world. Meta primarily generates revenue from advertising and related services on its digital platforms of Facebook and Instagram. Comparatively, Kustomer is a small American business that specialises in customer relationship management software as a service. This software is used to collect customer interaction data to benefit customers experience in future online transactions.
The ACCC did not oppose Meta’s proposed acquisition as it realised that access to improved customer relationship management software is essential for Meta to conduct its business. The ACCC did consider that this acquisition may have been to restrict competition, as previously happened with the acquisition of WhatsApp, but concluded that Meta would instead promote the use of its messaging services for Kustomer and benefit advertisers using Meta’s platform. Customer data would also be easily accessible to Meta’s advertisers and would be unlikely to give Meta a competitive advantage. As such, this proposed acquisition was deemed by the ACCC as not likely to substantially lessen competition in Australia.
The proposed acquisition is also subject to competition review in other jurisdictions, namely, the UK, EU, and the USA. Meta is clearly homing in on new ways to improve its customer transaction data and bridge this key information into its ever growing ‘metaverse’. It will be interesting to see whether Meta has any other companies lined up for acquisition in the near future.
For the full reading of the ACCC media release, see here.
