Apple bought Shazam: officially confirmed

Today it’s became officially announced that Apple bought Shazam for $400 million.

As the rumors said some days ago Apple made an offer to buy Shazam. The popular smartphone app was founded in 1999 to recognize any music and even buy them. Shazam has more than 120 million of users who use the app 20 million times a day. Most of them bought their musics on iTunes. By getting Shazam, Apple will save money on commissions.

Now Shazam became Apple’s most expensive investments behind the acquisition of Beats Electronic. They bought the rapper Dr. Dre’s company for $3 billion in 2014. It seems Apple wants to be a big factor in the music industry as well.
Now the transaction also affects the competition on the streaming market. Shazam will not referring users to Spotify or Google Play Music anymore. So people who loved Shazam’s connection with Spotify will be disappointed.

The deal is still pending and it will be closed officially in the coming weeks.

The reasons why Apple bought Shazam now

For Apple, Shazam gives many possibilities and opportunities with the integration of Siri personal assistant. Although it’s already integrated and allows users to ask Siri “What song is playing?”. Apple said Shazam is a “natural fit” in their music streaming platform, Apple Music. Apple choose the right time to invest, because Shazam’s value started to raise again. Before 2015 the company value was estimated near $1 billion, but it’s dropped after a funding round. Shazam’s revenue was $54 million last year again.

Apple said, end users will not experience any changes with the services. At least not in a wrong sense. We are skeptics about that, regarding Shazam is available on Android systems and we have doubt about the long term support.

Now Shazam faces a competition with SoundHound which is (and will be) available on Android phones.