The purchase of Beats Electronics by Apple has been confirmed. The tech giant will pay $3 billion for the audio equipment and streaming music company co-founded by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, who will move into as yet unspecified executive roles at Apple.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told
USA Today:
“This is a big deal. But to put it in some perspective, we acquired 15 companies last year and 12 this year, some 27 in 18 months,” he says. “But this one is all about music, which we’ve always felt is in our veins and we’ve always appreciated that technology alone was not enough.”
It remains to be seen how Apple will integrate the Beats hardware line and streaming services into their existing products, but Cook promised some “exciting things in the near term”. The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off this coming Monday, so we may get some hints as early as next week.
