Apple has taken another step into show business, buying the music-recognition service Shazam, Variety reported.
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple,” the company said in a statement. “Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. 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. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
Shazam said in a statement: “We are excited to announce that Shazam has entered into an agreement to become part of Apple. Shazam is one of the highest-rated apps in the world and loved by hundreds of millions of users and we can’t imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users. ”
Financial details of the acquisition weren’t disclosed by Apple, but the purchase price is reportedly around $400 million. U.K.-based Shazam was at one point valued at $1 billion, and has raised more than $143 million from investors.
Shazam was initially launched in 1999 as a phone-based music-recognition service that lets users identify songs by calling into a special number. It now operates through apps that have been downloaded more than 1 billion times across a variety of mobile platforms.
There is no word yet on what the acquisition means for Shazam’s existing business, Variety reported. Shazam has worked with Spotify to let its app users add recognized songs to their Spotify playlists and to listen to Spotify in Shazam’s app.
