Will Apple Buy Shazam

Apple is buying Shazam, a music recognition app. Apple will pay $400 million for the company, which was last valued at $1 billion. Apple plans to buy Shazam, the song-recognition company, for hundreds of millions of dollars.


So Apple must think the brand itself has value, and it's reasonable to assume it will integrate the feature into its iOS operating system. For Apple, the obvious benefit of acquiring Shazam is the company's music and sound recognition technologies.

It will also save some money on the commissions Apple pays Shazam for sending users to its iTunes Store to buy content, which made up the majority of Shazam's revenue in 2016.

Buying Shazam makes total logical sense for Apple: It gives the company a service and a way to convert people onto Apple Music. Song recognition is a neat trick for a digital assistant; one of the Google Pixel 2's coolest tricks is background song recognition.

Apple does not often make nine-figure acquisitions, preferring to buy smaller start-ups with specific technologies or talent. Early next year, after a few months' delay, Apple will release the HomePod, its answer to Google's Home and Amazon's Echo smart-speaker devices.