Apple buys Beats by 2,200 million euros – The País.com (Spain)

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Jimmy Iovine, Tim Cook, Dr. Dre and Eddy Cue, after signing the agreement. / Business Wire

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computer giant and technology Apple said Wednesday it has agreed to buy Beats , the company’s headsets and music streaming (listen to music without downloading it), for 2,200 million euros (3,000 million). This is Apple’s largest acquisition in its history.

Beats, founded in 2008 by rapper Dr. Dre and producer Jimmy Iovine legendary musical, is the maker of the popular high-end headphones that look many celebrities in the United States, but has been its entry into the market for digital music services earlier this year which has raised the profile of the company, and what made Apple’s interest to acquire it multiply. Beats racing including Spotify for the same space in the market for streaming music . With the purchase, the firm at the apple pulls ahead of Google and Amazon in this field.

During checkout, Apple paid $ 2,600 million in cash and the rest will do with company stock. Dr. Dre and joked a few weeks ago on his Facebook account saying that the magazine Forbes should be prepared to update the list of millionaires , because it would soon appear in it. Beats own brand and keep the rapper and Iovine will have important positions in the firm.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said that the interest of the company was due to Beats that “music is a important part of everyone’s life and has a special place in the hearts of Apple. ” “This win talent, a subscription service that is growing very fast and quality headphones that have been very successful,” Cook said in a statement. What is clear is that Apple needed to strengthen market streaming , that ha grown by 57% in one year while download sales (iTunes core business) fell by 1%.

Unlike other technology companies like Facebook or Google, Apple has not made a multimillion dollar acquisition in at least a decade, the company has chosen to insist on their own R & D. So far, NeXT, the operating system that created Steve Jobs during the time of expulsion from Apple was the largest purchase the company, cost $ 400 million (290 million euros) in 1996.

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