Apple To Announce Beats Acquisition This Week At Reduced Price Of $3 Billion
May 28, 2014
The rumored acquisition of Beats Electronics by Apple is pushing ahead, all right, but at a slightly lower price than previously supposed, according to the New York Post.
The newspaper reports:
The tech titan is expected to announce its acquisition of Beats Electronics this week — at the slightly reduced price of $3 billion, The Post has learned.The acquisition was originally reported to be happening to the tune of of $3.2 billion. Apparently, Apple reduced the price of the deal on account of a leaked report revealing that Beats Music, Beats' music streaming service, had only 111,000 subscribers in March (two months after its launch). In comparison, Spotify has 10 million paying subscribers. There's also the issue of Beats leaking the deal ahead of schedule, with Beats co-founder Dr. Dre appearing in a not-so-family-friendly video to celebrate his being "the first billionaire in hip-hop." The New York Post's report, however, notes:
While Dr. Dre boasted in a much-watched video that the sale would make him hip-hop’s first billionaire — Forbes estimated he could gross up to $800 million on a $3.2 billion sale from his 20 percent-to-25 percent stake — a discount could make it hard to reach a 10-figure net worth.Dr. Dre is expected to join Apple's executive team along with Beats co-founding CEO Jimmy Iovine. Both are also expected to attend next week's Worldwide Developer Conference, where Apple is likely to announce more about its deal with Beats.
