After much speculation over the weekend, Cupertino-based Apple Inc. has confirmed the acquisition of Shazam for an undisclosed financial amount.
In a statement released to the public, Apple has stated that it is “thrilled” that Shazam and its team are going to be officially joining the camp.
The official statement on the acquisition has put to bed all speculation that has emerged over the weekend. Apple has been working closely with Shazam for quite a while now, meaning that there has always been a bubbling cauldron of speculation about the relationship between the two companies. Passionate talk about an official takeover started to surface weekend past, with commentators floating an acquisition figure of $300 – $400 million. Apple hasn’t announced any financials on the deal but has spoken about “exciting” plans for the future:
We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. 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.
There’s a lot of things about Shazam that Apple would be extremely interested in. Both companies have a pedigree where music is concerned and have actually worked together with Apple integrating Shazam’s recognition services into Siri in iOS 8 and beyond. That integration means that iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners have been able to ask Siri to recognize a playing song by utilizing Shazam’s functionality without having to have the app installed. Shazam has also stated that its apps have been downloaded more than 1 billion times since its original launch onto the App Store in 2008.
It’s likely that Apple is acquiring the company for the technology behind the platform, meaning that we can probably expect to see the Shazam app disappear from the App Store and any third-party integrations disappearing from other apps over the course of time. It’s impossible to say when, or actually if, this will happen, but with the deal now official and Shazam now following in the footsteps of Beats Electronics as a high-profile acquisition by Apple, it’s only a matter of time until we see what these “exciting” plans are.