Apple acquires music analytics start-up 'Asaii'

In a bid to further cement its position in the global music space, Apple has acquired "Asaii," a start-up developed music analytics engine for music labels and artist managers, the media reported on Monday.

According to a report in Axios, the deal was worth nearly $100 million.

"Asaii's products collect data from music services and social media, allowing labels to discover new artists and produce a recommendation algorithm that streaming services could use to suggest music to listeners according to their preferences," the report said.

Members of the Asaii team have already started listing themselves as Apple employees on LinkedIn.

This acquisition would enable Apple to compete with Spotify's efforts to work directly with smaller artists and recommendation services like "Daily Mix" and "Discover Weekly".

Apple last month announced it has completed the acquisition of Shazam, one of the world's most popular music recognition mobile apps.

Shazam has been downloaded over 1 billion times around the world and users identify songs using the Shazam app over 20 million times each day.

According to media reports, Apple struck a deal with Shazam for a likely sum of nearly $400 million.

Shazam lets users identify songs simply by listening to the music playing around them.

Apple has made some other acquisitions as well, like buying Beats for $3 billion in 2014 which became the basis for Apple Music.

--IANS

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