Mikey Campbell
Apple has purchased British media analytics startup Semetric in what appears to be the next step in a planned push for Beats Music, the streaming music platform Apple acquired last year as part of its Beats deal.
News of the acquisition was carried by The Guardian, which reported Apple is looking to integrate Semetric's analytics technology into Beats Music as part of an expected relaunch later in 2015. Apple purchased Beats' hardware and software divisions in a $3 billion deal last year.
The publication pieced together clues of Apple's Semetric's acquisition discovered in filings with the UK's Companies House. For example, the startup changed its registered address earlier this month to a London location housing law firm Baker & McKenzie, an address also registered to Apple Europe Limited. A separate filing from January revealed Semetric assigned Apple attorney Gene Levoff to a director role in October 2014.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plan," Apple said in its usual canned statement.
The UK startup's main product is Musicmetric, a service that provides statistics on sales data, social media impact, digital downloads and more to music labels, artists and others in the industry. Applied to Apple's Beats Music, Musicmetric technology could be used to more accurately calculate royalties, a metric that has been difficult to quantify across today's numerous social media platforms.
Launched in 2008, Semetric successfully raised $4.7 million in a funding round in January 2013 to expand its metric gathering capacity into e-books, television shows, films and games, the publication said. That same month, Semetric reached a deal with Spotify to integrate the music streaming service's data into the Musicmetric dashboard.
It is unclear if Semetric's existing partnerships will carry over as part of Apple's acquisition. Also unknown is the final price Apple paid for the London-based firm.
Rumors last year claimed Apple is looking to rebrand Beats Music or otherwise roll the service into another product more closely aligned with iTunes or iTunes Radio. While official plans have yet to be discussed, Apple could ply Semetric's tools toward the creation of an in-house analytics dashboard that covers not only music artists and labels, but all content owners selling digital wares across iTunes's expansive universe, including apps, movies, TV shows and iBooks.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
33 Comments
Still no iTunes Radio in the UK. What is it now: three years? I miss the days when Apple was an international company.
So Beats has turned into a money pit. Smart though that Apple is not releasing purchase price information after the Beats $$ public relations fiasco. How will this Beats Music service ever turn a profit?
[quote name="Benjamin Frost" url="/t/184408/apple-buys-uk-music-tracking-startup-semetric-to-boost-beats-music-analytics#post_2664042"]Still no iTunes Radio in the UK. What is it now: three years?[/quote] While I'm not saying Apple is blame free on the glacial pace of iTunes Radio going international, sadly I suspect most the delays are down to the arse backwards recording industry being stubborn over the licencing - isn't Australia the only country outside the US to currently have iTunes Radio? Also Apple, while you remember that the UK exists for a few seconds can we have ApplePay too? And iPlayer / 4OD / etc on AppleTV? Is that too much to ask?
[quote name="DaveMcM76" url="/t/184408/apple-buys-uk-music-tracking-startup-semetric-to-boost-beats-music-analytics#post_2664069"] While I'm not saying Apple is blame free on the glacial pace of iTunes Radio going international, sadly I suspect most the delays are down to the arse backwards recording industry being stubborn over the licencing - isn't Australia the only country outside the US to currently have iTunes Radio? Also Apple, while you remember that the UK exists for a few seconds can we have ApplePay too? And iPlayer / 4OD / etc on AppleTV? Is that too much to ask?[/quote] I daresay foreign markets represent a major sticking point for Apple with regard to navigating all of the legal and licensing issues.
"One of our top priorities is to bring iTunes Radio obviously here in the U.K. but everywhere in the world," Cue said last week in an interview from London. "We certainly want to be in more than 100 countries." That was back in 2013. We have 2015 and iTunes Radio is still available only in 2 countries. Honestly, I don't care what's holding them back, this is just totally unacceptable. Apple seems to be becoming more and more US-centric with some of their solutions and I'm seriously losing my patience.