Photo Credit: Shazam
A financial report reveals that Shazam added 78 million users in 2018. That’s a total of 478 million annual active users for the music identification platform.
Shazam’s revenues fell to £31.4 million ($38.3M) last year, but it managed to turn a profit of £144 million. That’s compared to a £17.7 million loss reported in 2017. It’s worth noting that Apple completed its acquisition of Shazam in November of 2018.
Shazam’s financial results for 2018 reveal that the company saw £157.7m of income from ‘the disposal of intangible assets.’
The note on that income says revenue of £156.6 million relates to the proceeds from the sale of intellectual property net of the cost of disposal in the period ending 31 December 2018. Revenue of £1.1 million relates to the value attributed to the workforce of Shazam Media Services, acquired by Apple in November 2018.
Since then, Apple has been working hard to incorporate the service. A new ‘add to playlist’ option now appears for Apple Music when you identify a song. Identified songs also appear in a new playlist in Apple Music called ‘My Shazam Tracks.’ (Something Rdio had as a feature all the way back in 2013.)
You can bet the integration has helped give Apple better insight into what people are hearing and where. That’s valuable in the music industry — just ask Spotify.
Apple Music even created a ‘Shazam Discovery’ playlist to highlight songs people are searching for from up-and-coming artists. Apple hasn’t exactly shared how that playlist works beyond sharing that it uses Shazam’s proprietary algorithms.
Shazam announced a valuation of $1 billion in 2015. But reporting suggests Apple managed to acquire Shazam for around $400 million last year. The cross-promotion between the two companies has been heavy ever since.
Eagle-eyed social media users spotted an Apple TV+ original content takeover when looking up songs via Shazam. Cross-promotion between services isn’t new, but Apple has certainly moved quickly to incorporate Shazam into the fold.