7 Reasons why Apple has acquired Shazam

Afer days of speculation, it's official. Apple has acquired the popular music app Shazam, its second biggest music acquisition.
In 2014, the company had acquired Beats Electronics in a $3-billion deal. One of the most popular music apps, Shazam allows users to identify tracks and find them on music sources like iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.

Apple Inc issued a statement describing Shazam as "natural fit" with its services. "We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam," the company further added in the statement. In a separate statement, London-based Shazam said, "We can't imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users."
Here's why the world's most valuable company has acquired Shazam and what the acquisition means for users.

Shazam is one of the most popular music apps. The app has been among the top Apps on App Store ever since its launch.
Available across platforms and devices, the app is said to have been downloaded on over a billion smartphones. The service has over 100 million monthly active users.

Apple Music users to reap the biggest benefits of the acquisition.
Shazam's music and sound recognition capabilities will help Apple further improve the experience of Apple Music, which so far has still been trying to play catch up with Spotifly.

If Apple shutters down Shazam app, it will hurt Apple Music's biggest rival Spotify.
As shutting down the app will take away millions of referrals that Spotify gets from Shazam. The music-streaming app reportedly gets 1 million clicks per day from Shazam along with Apple Music. Reports suggest that Spotify and Snap (Snapchat's parent company) too were interested in buying Shazam.

Shazam app's capabilities are likely to get deeper integration with iOS. This may be similar to the song recognition feature in Google's Pixel devices.
The app has since long powered song identification feature in Apple's voice assistant Siri.

Shazam has capabilities much beyond song recognition. It has AR platform for brands and artists from around the world. In 2015, it also added its own visual-recognition technology. Analysts expect all this may help Apple build a Google Lens-type feature.

The acquisition may give further boost to Apple's Augmented Reality plans. With Shazam in kitty, Apple will be better able to provide developers tools to build AR apps.
The company's CEO Tim Cook has been very upbeat on the potential of AR technology. The company added the ability to read QR codes to iOS 11's Camera app earlier this year. The acquisition may further help Apple enhance AR features on iPhones and iPads.