Apple confirms deal to buy music discovery app Shazam
Apple Inc on Monday confirmed it had reached a deal to acquire Shazam Entertainment Ltd, the U.K.-based app that lets users identify songs by pointing a smart phone at the audio source.
Apple did not give a price for the acquisition.
Technology news website TechCrunch reported the deal on Friday with a price of as much as $400 million, far short of the most recent $1 billion valuation for privately held Shazam.
Shazam, which is based in London, said last year that it had reached one billion downloads on smartphones
SHAZAM'S STORY In 1999, a Stanford Ph.D. named Avery Wang co-founded, with Dhiraj Mukherjee, Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, a tech start-up called Shazem, to offer a high-tech solution to listeners' longtime agony over not recognizing music on the radio or in bars, letting users identify songs through their phones' microphones. Shazam, which is based in London, said last year that it had reached one billion downloads on smartphones. But it only recently started to see profitability by incorporating advertisements and tying up with other tech firms including Spotify and Apple, to which it refers traffic.
Apple said Shazam would be a 'natural fit' with its Apple Music streaming service and it would help users discover new songs.
Apple Music has 27 million users and competes against Spotify Ltd, which has 60 million users.
Apple said Shazam´s team would be joining the Cupertino company.
In a statement, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Shazam 'is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. ...
'We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today´s agreement.'
Apple did not elaborate on its plans, but the company will not be able to make any major changes to Shazam until it secures regulatory approval.
Shazam offers a high-tech solution to listeners' longtime agony over not recognizing music on the radio or in bars, letting users identify songs through their phones' microphones.
Shazam's smartphone app is already tightly integrated with Apple's Siri digital assistant.
Users of Apple's iPhone with the Shazam app installed can say: 'Hey Siri, what's that song?' and the app will identify it.
But Shazam has other features, such as the ability to identify television shows, that do not yet work with Siri.
Shazam is also available on Android-based devices, but Apple did not say whether it would keep the Android version available.
Shazam ended support for a version of its software that runs on Microsoft Corp´s Windows PCs earlier this year.