After apparently failing to keep up with the Spotify pace, Apple is seeking to step up its game in music services. According to yet to be confirmed information, 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.
According to TechCrunch, the deal that will see Apple acquire Shazam is being signed this week, and will be announced today or later this week. The deal as in the nine figures; another puts it at around £300 million ($401 million). We are still asking around. Notably, though, the numbers we’ve heard are lower than the $1.02 billion (according to PitchBook) post-money valuation the company had in its last funding round, in 2015.
Shazam last noted that it passed 1 billion downloads, but that was back in September 2016, meaning those numbers are likely higher now. But in the world of apps, high numbers do not always translate into profits: In September 2017, Shazam reportedly 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.
Shazam launched way back in 1999, well before the days of apps, as a service you reached by way of a SMS code — in fact, its first name was 2580, after the number you typed in the UK to access the service.
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