Apple completes Shazam acquisition, will soon become ad-free

Apple has successfully completed the acquisition of popular music discovery app Shazam. Apple had announced its plan to acquire the service in December last year. The acquisition was delayed a bit as the European Commission was reviewing the acquisition, which was later approved on September 6, 2018. Apple completed it on September 24, 2018. Although not many details about the acquisition have been shared officially, it was reported to be a $400 million deal. Apple now plans to make the app ad-free for all users so everyone can enjoy the best of Shazam without interruption.

Shazam was founded in 1999 and the music recognition service was launched in the UK in 2002, where users were able to get a track recognised by dialling a shortcode from their number. The phone would automatically hang up after 30 seconds and a text containing the song title and artist's name would be messaged to the user. Shazam app for iPhone debuted in July 2008, and for Android platform in October. Shazam uses microphone to identify a song and match it against the database to fetch details. In August 2014, it had more than100 million monthly active users and had been used on more than 500 million mobile devices. In October 2016, Shazam announced that its mobile apps have been downloaded more than 1 billion times, and users identify songs using the Shazam app over 20 million times in a day.

"Apple and Shazam have a long history together. Shazam was one of the first apps available when we launched the App Store and has become a favourite app for music fans everywhere," said Oliver Schusser, Apple's vice president of Apple Music. "With a shared love of music and innovation, we are thrilled to bring our teams together to provide users even more great ways to discover, experience and enjoy music."

With pioneering innovation in music identification, Shazam helps people discover, interact with and share video, audio or printed content across devices and mediums - and allows music fans to follow their favourite artists and share in the thrill of discovery.