After weeks of rumors, Apple announced Wednesday that it has officially acquired Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3 billion. The purchase makes Apple the proud owner of an active music streaming service, along with the popular but controversial Beats-branded headphones that Apple has sold in its retail stores for quite some time.
Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will both join Apple as a part of the acquisition. Jimmy Iovine is quoted to be quite happy with the acquisition, noting that he has “always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,”.
As far as financial specifics go, Apple notes in a press release that the purchase price for the companies was $2.6 billion, while the remaining $400 million will vest over time. It looks like Dr. Dre just got a hell of a lot richer.
We don’t yet know whether Beats will remain a separate subsidiary or whether it’ll be rolled into the Apple brand.
[Update, 8:28PM PDT: As reported by The Verge, Apple’s Eddie Cue stated at this year’s CodeCon conference that Apple will keep the Beats brand.]
But that’s a question that we’ll get an answer to in time. Now maybe Apple can make those Beats headphones not sound like total garbage.
Image Source: Karlis Dambrans
