There have been conflicting theories about why Apple spent a rumored $400M on acquiring Shazam. Some suggested it was nothing more than protecting Siri’s Shazam-powered music recognition. Others wondered whether it was to expose Shazam’s customer base to Apple Music. Yet others theorized it was for the data.
Now one early investor in Shazam has suggested that the combination of the latter two elements could significantly boost Apple Music subscriptions …
Business Insider reports the comments made by DN Capital analyst Mark Mulligan.
That alone would add between 1.5M and 7.5M subscribers to Apple’s streaming music service. But Mulligan also strongly supports the data theory.
This approach – analyzing who is listening to what – was successfully used by Spotify to drive its popular Discover Weekly playlists.
The sheer range of DN Capital’s estimates reeks of ‘finger in the air’ guesswork, but the data theory seems to be gaining ground. I wrote before that whether or not Apple shuttered the Android Shazam app would give a big clue as to its motives; right now, the app is still alive and well.
Image: @FlareZephyr
