Apple reportedly acquiring Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion

Scorpus

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A report from the Financial Times believes that Apple will soon announce it's acquiring audio gear manufacturer Beats Electronics, in a deal worth $3.2 billion. People familiar with the deal told the Times that it could be announced "as early as next week", although some details had yet to be agreed on.

Both Beats' streaming music service and audio accessory division would be included in the purchase, strengthening Apple's product portfolio. The company already sells Beats gear through their retail stores, while they've also been working towards a more comprehensive music streaming service that Beats could assist with.

Apple may also choose to harness Beats' design and engineering teams to produce their own range of Apple-branded accessories. Beats Electronics is known as a premium, fashionable brand in some circles, which would complement Apple's stylish design language used across their products such as the iPhone and MacBook.

If Apple ends up purchasing Beats for as much as $3.2 billion, it would be the company's largest acquisition to date. As The Verge notes, at this stage the largest acquisition made by Apple was NeXT back in 1997, which cost the company $600 million when adjusted for inflation.

Beats Electronics was founded in 2008 by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre as a headphone design company, using Monster Cable's facilities for manufacturing. From 2012, Beats began manufacturing their own products, including speakers, before branching out to music streaming services. From 2011 to 2013, HTC was a majority shareholder in the company through a $300 million deal that included exclusive rights to produce smartphones with Beats-branded audio.

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A gangster rapper sells to Apple, that's like NSA hiring Edward Snowden back as a security consultant. Preposterous, pathetic and hypocritical - all in one package.

Ok, so Dre will finally afford diamond teeth and a platinum Rolls Royce, and we won't hear another song from him.

-That was a terrible analogy:

-When did Dre ever work in the tech industry?

-Dre made his money from producing and his record labels.

-What in the hell does Edward Snowden have to do with this?

-Dre is already worth hundreds of millions of dollars; he doesn't need to be on another track regardless if this deal goes through or not.

Awful, just awful VitalyT.
 
Yeah - that was pretty bad V. He's already plenty rich as it is and even though I hate Beats headphones and won't try their streaming music service I've gotta admit that he's done a lot for the music industry and is a great businessman. Credit where credit is due... everything isn't about bling'd teeth when black people get money... and yes, it did come off that way when you posted it.
 
If they sell for 3.2bil they are selling themselves for cheap. Beats brand is worth that and then some when you consider its' future value. Then tack on the new streaming service( which surprisingly is doing well) and you are looking at a $10 billion company with a very short forecast of I'd say five years.

The top two shareholders ( Young and Iovine) together have earned 1.2bil in just the past 36 months. If I were part owner noway I'd sell for that price unless the acquisition included some share of Apple itself.
 
One more reason to avoid an Apple; sadly my HTC has the Beats name on it, though I don't use it for music, but my experience is that the audio tends to be shockingly bad for devices with Beats technology.
 
Beats has a design and engineering team???

I thought Monster did all the work.

Monster and Beats have parted ways some time ago. Ever since that the Beats headphone line has improved however nothing great compared to other headphone vendors.
 
Beats have a high price, but I didn't think that they sounded as good as other headphones in their price range when I sampled them. Are they just fashion over quality?
 
They are definitely fashion accessories. They don't sound good at all compared to other cans you can get at each price point. Certain versions are also constructed really well and they win in the looks dept. Unfortunately I'm more of a function over form sort of guy until I reach a certain level of function.
 
I know people in the music industry. Never once has any one of them even mentioned Beats, let alone recommended them. This begs me to ask, why is this article not tagged under 'fashion'?
 
Another reason why we don't let tech people oversee all M&A decisions
 
One more reason to avoid an Apple; sadly my HTC has the Beats name on it, though I don't use it for music, but my experience is that the audio tends to be shockingly bad for devices with Beats technology.
My wife gave me a HTC phone with Beats in ear buds. They were better than the ones had on my previous phone and of a more substantial construction. They are still working two years on despite being mistreated. From that point of view I am happy with them but I doubt I would go out out and spend £200 or more on headphones.
 
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