Apple to buy music recognition app Shazam for $400 million I Apple ‘to buy Shazam for $400m’

Apple is close to buying the music recognition app Shazam for about $400m (£300m), media reports say.

Shazam, a UK company founded in 1999, allows people to use their smartphone or computer to identify and buy music through a snippet of sound.

Shazam, which says it has more than 100 million monthly users, makes most of its revenue from commissions paid on referrals to .

Neither Apple nor Shazam have commented on the reports on the TechCrunch site.

If the deal is confirmed, Shazam will become the latest in a string of UK technology firms to be bought up by larger businesses.

The influential Music Business Worldwide site points out that the reported price is significantly lower than the $1bn valuation placed on Shazam during its last funding round in 2015.

By acquiring Shazam, Apple would basically cut out the middleman and save money on commissions.

It would also hurt the competition, since Shazam would no longer be referring people to rivals Spotify and Google Play Music.

The deal would also help the Apple Music service gain ground on Spotify, by making it easier for users to find songs and add them to playlists.

At present, Spotify has 60 million users worldwide, while Apple Music has just 27 million.

Apple is said to be looking at acquiring Shazam, one of the most popular apps for recognising music, TV shows, films and adverts, with an official deal potentially being announced later today, according to TechCrunch.

Several sources have spoken to the tech site, and while one said the price would be in the nine figure territory, another put it much lower at $400m (£300m), which is also a lot lower than than the $1bn valuation the company received in 2015.

With Shazam onboard, Apple would have the ability to give the iPhone and iPad a similar music recognition feature as the Google Pixel 2, which constantly listens out for music around you and presents results on the home screen without you having to dive into any apps.

Currently, when you can tell Shazam which music streaming service you use and get direct access to it, so when you Shazam music track, if it's available, it automatically gets added to your library. If Apple were to acquire the service, there's a chance it will exclusively connect with Apple Music and it will be interesting to see if the app will only be made available to iOS devices, forcing Android users to look elsewhere for song identifying apps.

The deal would also mean Apple will save money on commissions it has to pay out. If someone buys a song from iTunes after Shazaming it, Apple has to give Shazam a cut of the takings.

Neither Apple nor Shazam have commented on the murmurings just yet, but we'll update this story as and when anything official is announced.