Shazam a $1bn global success

Congratulations to Shazam, the UK tech firm that has been valued at $1bn, confirming its position as a global success story. The music discovery app unveiled nearly £20m of new backing, and its current valuation of more than £66m ($1bn) makes it, according to the company, the first UK mobile app to break the billion dollar barrier.

Incredibly, Shazam also claimed that roughly 10% of global digital music sales now originate from the app (users who follow a link after identifying a song can go on to buy the track). Shazam gets a cut of that, but it’s not because of this that the app has got new backing – it’s mobile advertising and deals which involve using its technology as a promotion tool. The app also plans to develop new features using the camera on smartphones.

Olivier Bernard, VP EMEAR of App Annie, welcomed the news, commenting:

“The news that Shazam has become only the fifth UK tech start-up to be valued at over $1bn is a sign of how robust and exciting the App Economy is. In the past few years, apps have grown from curiosities into businesses that are driving innovation and growth across the world. Shazam joining the exclusive  $1 billion club validates the idea that mobile app development should no longer be seen as a side project, but as important as desktop and web.”

“It is also interesting to note that the other companies on this list, Wonga, Monitise, Zoopla and Powa Technologies, all owe a huge amount of their success to mobile and apps. Shazam’s valuation displays the potential that apps have – it is a sector ripe for growth. To stand–out from the crowd in the busy app marketplace, businesses must invest in understanding how users interact on their app and what their competitors are doing, so they can react accordingly. Shazam is a prime example of a company that has catered towards what its users want, delivering a service that has kept it consistently in the top 40 apps in both the UK and the US over the past four years.”