Shazam is an application developed by Shazam Entertainment Ltd. The application can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. On 24 September 2018, Shazam Entertainment Ltd. was bought by Apple Inc. The software is available for Android, macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS. Shazam Entertainment Limited was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang, and Dhiraj Mukherjee. In December 2013, according to its CEO, Shazam was one of the top ten most popular apps in the world. As of August 2014, the Shazam app had more than 100 million monthly active users and had been used on more than 500 million mobile devices. In October 2014, Shazam announced its technology has been used to identify 15 billion songs. In October 2016, Shazam announced its mobile apps have been downloaded more than 1 billion times, and users have performed more than 30 billion "Shazams" since launch. In December 2017, Apple Inc. announced it would be acquiring Shazam for a reported $400 million (£300 million). On 23 April 2018, the European Commission stated that it would be reviewing the acquisition. The European Commission approved the acquisition on 6 September 2018 and the acquisition was completed later that month on 24 September 2018.
Shazam has been downloaded over 1 billion times around the world and is used over 20 million times every day. The app has been around since the beginnings of the App Store. The user holds up their phone, records a song playing nearby for a few seconds, and the track and artist information gets logged.
Apple confirmed it was buying Shazam and its development team for a reported $400 million December 2017. The acquisition was temporarily held up because of an investigation by the European Union, which scrutinized the deal over potential antitrust concerns. Regulators eventually approved the deal.
Apple successfully completed its acquisition of Shazam and Apple is going to make the iOS and Android apps ad-free.
