Apple Acquires Shazam

[travelin cat]

The article states that Shazam was worth $1 Billion in January of 2015. Having never used the app, I can't wrap my head around it being valued that high. I see that it's been downloaded over a billion times, but how does it make money to validate that worth?

Apple today announced it has acquired music recognition service Shazam, marking the company's highest-profile purchase since it acquired headphone maker Beats for a confirmed $3 billion in May 2014.

[macrumors.com...]

[keyplyr]

Forbes also says Shazam Is Now Worth $1 Billion despite never having made a profit.
[forbes.com...]

[grelmar]

travelin cat wrote:

The article states that Shazam was worth $1 Billion in January of 2015. Having never used the app, I can't wrap my head around it being valued that high. I see that it's been downloaded over a billion times, but how does it make money to validate that worth?

The end user is the product.

Basically, it's a marketing data collection tool. It creates a database of music that the user is interested in, and then Shazam sells that info for targeted advertising and marketing campaigns. The larger the user base, the bigger and more valuable the sample data becomes, allows for both demographic and individual targeting.

[penitentman]

I've used shazam many times and they've never monetized me to my knowledge. There are ads and download options in the song results. If they are re-targeting me somehow than I am not aware.

[carguy84]

It's an affiliate play. Shazam provides links to buy the song they just Shazamed and get a cut of every purchase. Something like 20,000,000 songs a Shazamed a day.