Apple confirms Shazam acquisition; Snap and Spotify also expressed interest
It is purchasing the startup — one of earliest players in the world of
mobile music — as part of its bigger ambitions in the music business.
Apple did not disclose the price but we have several sources that have confirmed to us that the deal is in the region of $400 million.
Apple generally does not spell out the details of how it plans to use acquisitions, but there are a number of areas where Shazam’s current business overlaps with that of Apple’s, making for an interesting range of possibilities for where and how the two will work together.
Shazam’s core business is in music recognition: people use its app to capture a clip of music that is playing, and then it matches that against its large database to tell you what you are listening to, a business that has brought the company over 1 billion downloads of its app to date.
Through all of this, Shazam has developed some interesting partnerships, specifically with Apple and Spotify (who together get around 1 million referrals each month via Shazam), and Snapchat, which currently has an integration with Shazam.
