Wednesday, December 13, 2017
On Monday, US-based tech company Apple, Inc. confirmed acquisition of UK-based song identification application Shazam. According to reports, the deal is worth US$400 million.
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple […] and we can’t imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users.”, Shazam spokesperson Giovanni Bossio said. Shazam has over one hundred million users.
Founded in West London in 1999 by Avery Wang, Chris Barton, Dhiraj Mukharjee, and Philip Inghelbrecht, Shazam creates a “digital fingerprint of the audio” and recognises a song, and provides other information including artist’s name, album, lyrics, release year and record label company. It also provides links to music streaming services including Apple Music, Google Play Music and Spotify. Shazam generates revenue from advertisements and commission from streaming services.
Shazam is integrated with Apple’s voice assistant Siri. Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr said, “Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.” Apple Music has about 27 million subscribers, while its competitor Spotify has about 60 million.
California-based company Apple, Inc. acquired Dr. Dre’s Beats Electronics three years ago for US$3 billion.