Apple’s acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion is one of the largest ever in the technology sector. Beats is about to get a big injection of steroids from Apple.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of iTunes, and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, talked about the reasoning behind Apple’s plan to buy Beats and gave hints about what the two companies could do together.
“It’s about music,” Cue said. “Music is something that is really important to culture. It’s important to everyone in the world. Everyone loves music. Apple has been involved in music since Day 1. … This is about us continuing to invest in music.”
He added that Beats had three things that Apple “wanted and loved:” incredible talent, premium headphones, and a well-curated subscription music service. It also sees opportunities in areas such as speakers, Cue said. Apple has a lot of customers, it knows what they listen to, it gives the customers an easy way to pay, and it has great relationships with artists, he said. All of those will help put Beats “on steroids,” Cue added.
Apple and Beats executives said the companies would work together to give consumers around the world more options to listen to
music. The Beats brand will remain separate from Apple’s, and Apple will offer both Beats’s streaming music service and premium
headphones. Apple said iTunes, which sells individual songs and albums and offers a streaming radio service, would be offered alongside the Beats music service.
The Beats deal brings Jimmy Iovine, a longtime music executive, and Dr. Dre, the rapper, to work under Eddy Cue, Apple’s executive in charge of Internet services. Dr. Dre and Mr. Iovine, who founded Beats in 2006, join a list of prominent executives whom Apple has added to its roster, including Angela Ahrendts, the former chief of Burberry, and
Paul Deneve, the former chief of Yves Saint Laurent.
