Apple acquires Shazam for $400 million

Apple has just confirmed its acquisition of the music identification application, Shazam. In addition to this, Apple has announced that the application will become ad-free for all users including Android users.

Shazam was one of the first applications to be successful on the App Store and has been downloaded over a billion times. The app “listens” to songs when users open it, and then provides links to the track via services such as Spotify and iTunes.
Apple’s vice president of Apple Music, Oliver Schusser, was rather vague about why the company was making the purchase. He said that he’s “thrilled to bring [their] teams together to provide users with even more great ways to discover, experience and enjoy music.”
Our opinion is that this acquisition occurred for three main reasons.
First, to keep up with competitors. Google Pixel can automatically identify a song played nearby without you having to do anything. Now that Apple has bought Shazam, I think it will incorporate a similar feature into iOS in the future.
Second, money. Supposedly, Shazam identifies 20 million tracks each day. If Apple could push these users further to iTunes, they could make a lot of money.
And third? As a way to improve Siri. Many people consider that Apple is lagging behind its competitors in voice assistants. But with Shazam’s expertise in the audio space – especially recognition and analysis – part of this experiment could potentially be used to improve Siri.
Whatever Apple has in mind for Shazam, I think we can all agree that removing ads is a good thing. Well, until we see what else Apple has at least his sleeve.