It is official; Apple has completed the Shazam acquisition for $400 million, with the statement the tech giant providing TechCrunch as follows:
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it’s used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. 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.”
While Apple itself has yet to confirm the price of this acquisition, sources close to the matter have pegged the deal to be closed at $400 million. According to these sources, the deal had been in the works for around five months and came after Shazam had been in talks with other companies that included Snapchat and Spotify.
Apple has never been a fan on telling the world on how it plans to make itself stay ahead of the competition with such acquisitions but we could have an idea on how it will use Shazam to bolster its presence in the tech industry. Shazam’s main business is in music recognition; people will use the app to capture a clip of music that is playing, and then it matches that against its massive database to tell you what you are listening to.
Apple could use the acquisition to improve the services quality of its other business, Apple Music. Spotify right now is Apple’s biggest competitor in the music space so it looks like the company will have a huge plan laid out on what it plans to do to take on the music industry in general.
Apple did launch the iPod several years ago, a device that took this very music industry by storm, so with music being a core element to the company’s growth, some grand schemes are going to be taking place back at Apple HQ.
