“As Spotify continues to inch towards a public listing, Apple is making a move of its own to step up its game in music services,” Katie Roof reports for TechCrunch. “Sources tell us that the company is close to acquiring Shazam, the popular app that lets people identify any song, TV show, film or advert in seconds, by listening to an audio clip or (in the case of, say, an ad) a visual fragment, and then takes you to content relevant to that search.”
“We have heard that the deal is being signed this week, and will be announced on Monday, although that could always change,” Roof reports. “One source describes the deal as in the nine figures; another puts it at around £300 million ($401 million).”
“Shazam last noted that it passed 1 billion downloads, but that was back in September 2016, meaning those numbers are likely higher now,” Roof reports. “But in the world of apps, high numbers do not always translate into profits: In September 2017, Shazam reported made £40.3 million ($54 million) in revenues in its 2016 fiscal year, which was a turnaround from the declines between FY 2014 and 2015. It made a statutory pre-tax loss of £4 million ($5.3 million) in 2016, which was still a loss but significantly smaller than the £16.6 million loss in FY 2015.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Certainly Shazam would be a very useful addition to the Apple Music family of products and services. Of course, you can currently ask Siri, “What’s this song?’ and you’ll get results from Shazam which you can buy from iTunes Store or listen to via Apple Music if you’re a member. We expect Apple might be interested in aspects of Shazam’s “Discover” music recommendation feature.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]