Apple buys Shazam for $400 million, has "exciting plans in store"

At the end of last week, we passed along a rumor that Apple was planning to buy music-naming app Shazam. Both companies have a history of working together as Shazam was one of the first titles in the App Store back in 2008. Back then, those running the app on their Apple iPhone 3G could purchase songs whose title they discovered with Shazam, from iTunes. That continues to this day. Starting with iOS 8, Shazam's song title discovery service was integrated into Siri.

Shazam has added a number of new capabilities since 2008 including the ability to ID television shows, movie posters, magazine ads and AR content. While the music features might be the first attraction for Apple, CEO Tim Cook has been fascinated by augmented reality and Shazam's abilities in this space could also have captured Apple's attention.

Apple usually keeps quiet about acquisitions and normally will not confirm that any transaction has even taken place. However, for the purchase of Shazam, Apple did release a statement that mentions the purchase and even names Shazam as its acquisition target. Apple is said to be paying approximately $400 million for the company, which is based in the U.K.


It should be interesting to see what Apple does with Shazam, which has been downloaded over 1 billion times in more than 190 countries.

source: Apple