Apple Confirms Acquisition of Shazam, Calling It a ‘Natural Fit’
Apple has confirmed the purchase of London-based music discovery app Shazam
Apple has confirmed the acquisition of London-based music discovery app Shazam in a sale reported to be in the ballpark of $400 million. In a statement provided to Billboard, Apple declined to go into specifics about financial aspects of the deal, but said it was “thrilled” to bring the Shazam team over to the Apple Music team in Cupertino.
“Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS,” the company said. “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.”
The company teased, “We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
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The Shazam acquisition had been in the works for several months following talks with other tech firms, including Spotify and Snapchat, according to TechCrunch, which broke news of the pairing late last week.
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Shazam was founded in 1999 and launched in the U.K. in 2002 as a call-in service. Two years later it arrived in the U.S. for AT&T customers and in 2008 the app debuted on Apple and Android platforms, eventually being downloaded over 1 billion times. Following a business model shift to advertising, the company announced in 2016 that it had finally turned a profit. A year earlier, the company was valued at over $1 billion.
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