There’s an interesting rumor going around that Apple is going to buy Shazam for about $400M…
Apple announced the acquisition of Shazam in a statement to Buzzfeed News, on 2017-12-11. In their statement, Apple acknowledged that Shazam was one of the most popular apps available for download in the iOS and Mac App Stores; and has hundreds of millions of users, on multiple platforms, worldwide.
“Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users,” Apple’s Tom Neumayr said. “We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
Apple is reportedly in late stage talks to acquire Shazam, a popular content recognition and identification app that is currently rounding up investments as it moves toward an initial public offering. This would be an interesting development, as the popular music recognition app is currently cross platform.
Shazam has been integrated into Apple’s iOS since June of 2014 when it released iOS 8. While the deal between the two organizations is NOT finalized, its anticipated that the deal, worth approximately $400M USD could be announced as early as Monday, 2017-12-11.
Originally called 2580, named after the number users had to dial to reach the service via text, the UK company came into existence in 1999. The app is now in both the iOS and Mac App Stores and has turned into a comprehensive audio discovery and identification service helping users identify songs, movies and TV shows by capturing audio. The app has been downloaded over 1 billion times.
Apple partnered with Shazam’s marketing team in 2015 to help power their Apple Music app. This is likely where they will permanently put the app, should they in fact come to an agreement to purchase the technology.
According to Shazam’s CEO, Rich Riley, the company reported revenues of £40.3M pounds for their 2016 fiscal year. Riley indicated that their marketing shift to advertising is what helped make them profitable and helped them become an acquisition target.
Shazam is integrated into iTunes and Apple Music, and has hooks into the iTunes Store. On the Android side, it also has hooks into Google Play. iTunes users can quickly purchase recognized songs. Apple Music users can quickly add identified songs to a customized playlist.
If purchased, Shazam would be Apple’s second largest acquisition in recent years. Apple purchased Beats for $3B USD in 2014. The Shazam purchase, however, at $400M, is likely to be a 60% discount over the organization’s most recent funding round, which valued the company and service at approximately $1B USD. Shazam has raised over $143M in funding since 2002, including monies obtained through Sony Music and Universal.