Apple acquires Shazam for $400 million

Apple pounced on to buy Shazam, the UK–based music recognition app, in its biggest acquisition since their $3bn deal to buy Beats Electronics in 2014, according to Recode.

However, the terms of the deal were not disclosed, but there is a valuation of $400m – less than half Shazam’s valuation after a private financing in 2015.

Apple purchased in 2012, a security company AuthenTec, which went to power iPhone’s TouchID system.

Shazam’s music an sound recognition is already integrated with SIri, could eventually gain a substantial integration with Apple iOS similar to Google’s Pixel an song recognition feature. Shazam’s revenue grew last year by 14 per cent to £40.3m, with pre-tax losses of £4m.

Shazam allows users to identify songs, movies and TV shows and even commercials from short audio clips.

Shazam Entertainment Ltd, is a British app development company that created an app that can identify music, movies based on a short sample played ad usimg the microphone on the device. Shazam which had more than 100 million monthly active users and had been used on over 500 million mobile devices, is one of the top ten most popular apps in the world.

 

“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple” Apple spokesperson said. Back in October 2014, Shazam has been used to identify 15 billion songs.

“We are excited to announce that Shazam has entered into an agreement to become part of Apple, Shazam said in a statement.

Apple acquisition cost is far from the $1 billion Shazam was valued at during their last funding round.

Apple is keen on Shazam’s augmented reality technology, which could enhance Apple’s offerings including use Shazam’s visual recognition tech.

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