Apple buys the music discovery app Shazam

Apple confirmed Monday it has bought Shazam, the music app that can identify a song by hearing just a snippet of it.

The acquisition boosts Apple’s position in the music world and advances its artificial intelligence efforts.

Shazam, launched in 1999, claims that at least one billion people have downloaded its app and used it to identify songs at least 30 billion times. Its service was one of the first AI products to be used by a broad audience.

As Apple faces other tech giants in this increasingly competitive arena, analysts say Shazam could add significant value not only with its own service but also by making Apple’s AI products — namely Siri — smarter about music.

“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS,” Apple said in a statement Monday.

“We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”

Shazam confirmed the acquisition in a statement of its own, which seemed to open the possibility that the service would continue after the acquisition.

“Shazam is one of the highest-rated apps in the world and loved by hundreds of millions of users and we can’t imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users,” the statement said.

Apple did not share further details about the agreement. TechCrunch reported the deal is valued at $400 million, and that Snap and Spotify were also potential buyers.

Music is an important part of Apple’s business, particularly as the company prepares to launch its HomePod smart speaker. The speaker was originally slated for release this year, but Apple said last month that it would delay its debut until early next year.

Shazam was founded in 2002 and made one of the first apps for the iPhone. It has about 250 employees working at its London headquarters and seven other offices in the U.S., Australia and Germany.

The Shazam deal marks Apple’s biggest acquisition in music since paying $3 billion for Beats Electronics’ line of headphones and music service in 2014.