San Francisco Dec 9 (IANS) Apple is reportedly acquiring popular music recognition app Shazam for a likely sum of nearly $400 million media reported.
According to a report in TechCrunch on Saturday the iPhone maker may officially announce the deal on Monday.
"One source describes the deal as in the nine figures; another puts it at around $401 million. We are still asking around " the report said.
Built by Shazam Entertainment Ltd a British app development company Shazam is used by hundreds of millions of people each month to instantly identify music that s playing and see what others are discovering.
Shazam that reports over one billion downloads lets music lovers identify any song TV show film or advert in a jiffy by listening to an audio clip or a visual fragment.
Launched in 1999 as an SMS code service Shazam reportedly made $54 million in revenues in the fiscal year 2016.
In the world of music Apple has made some other acquisition as well like buying Beats for $3 billion in 2014 which became the basis for Apple Music.
Shazam CEO Rich Riley and Apple were yet to comment.
Shazam has partners like venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and London s DN Captial plus content providers Sony Music Universal Music and Access Industries (owner of Warner Music).
--IANS
na/in
