Confirmed: Apple to close Shazam’s Sydney office

Following Apple’s September 21 acquisition of Shazam and moving the music recognition service to an ad-free format, it is shutting its global offices – including the one in Sydney which is the hub for its APAC operation.

A representative for Shazam Australia tells TMN, “We are in the process of closing down the Shazam commercial operation globally and the Sydney office is due to close at the end of this year.”

This means that “Shazam will no longer be selling new campaigns or accepting new insertion orders effective immediately.

“Any existing digital media campaigns will run as agreed up to 30th November 2018 at which point all in-app advertising will be switched off permanently.

“Existing Shazam Connect campaigns will be supported through until 31st December 2019.”

Apple announced it was acquiring Shazam at the end of last year, reportedly paying US$400 million for it.

Founded in 1999, its mobile app has since been downloaded over 1 billion times.

The app is still being used to identify songs over 20 million times a day, according to Apple.

Shazam’s expansion to visual search in 2015 had minimal success.

But its competition reality show Beat Shazam with Fox, where contestants have to beat the app in identifying songs, has been recently renewed for a third season.

At the time that the Shazam sale went through, Apple music VP Oliver Schusser said:

“Apple and Shazam have a long history together. Shazam was one of the first apps available when we launched the App Store and has become a favorite app for music fans everywhere.

“With a shared love of music and innovation, we are thrilled to bring our teams together to provide users even more great ways to discover, experience and enjoy music.”