Deals
Apple Buys Shazam to Boost Apple Music
- Shazam has close ties to Apple, integrated into Siri in 2014
- Purchase price of about $400 million may disappoint backers
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Apple Inc. agreed to acquire music-identification service Shazam, taking ownership of one of the first apps to demonstrate the power of the iPhone, recognizing songs after hearing just a few bars of a tune.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but a person familiar with the situation said Apple is paying about $400 million for the U.K.-based startup. That would be one of Apple’s largest acquisitions ever, approaching the size of its 1996 purchase of Next Computer Inc. which brought co-founder Steve Jobs back to the company. That transaction would be worth more than $600 million in today’s dollars.