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Report: Apple-Beats deal still happening, 70% certainty it will go through

Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine And Luke Wood Launch The Beats By Dr. Dre Pill At The Beats Store In Soho, NY

Small but notable update in the reported acquisition talks over Beats Electronics by Apple, this time courtesy of sources of TechCrunch:

A well-placed source has confirmed rumors that Apple’s acquisition of Beats “is happening” but was close to falling apart multiple times. The source said with “70% certainty” that Apple’s planned multi-billion acquisition of headphone maker Beats will go through.

This of course comes after a report broke from the Financial Times two weeks ago from today with information that Apple was in final talks to acquire the headphone and music service company.

The report shared that the acquisition was valued at $3.2 billion and could be announced as soon as the following week, but that the final terms had yet to be agreed upon and the deal could fall through. A number of other media outlets corroborated the Financial Times report in the period after it was released.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday, one day shy of a week from the original report, and Re/code shared a brief update on the Apple-Beats acquisition discussion stating that the deal may not be finalized until the following week.

Niether Beats nor Apple has offered comment on the reports in any form.

Probably more interesting than the report that the deal is still ongoing and has not fallen through is the 30% certainty that the deal will not go through.

 

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Comments

  1. J.latham - 10 years ago

    I really don’t see any benefit for Apple in this deal. This is probably the first acquisition that just doesn’t make any sense to me. Other companies do it better, other companies are even larger brand wise, and even Apple makes better Headphones/Speakers already.

    • They have facilities and engineers/designers plus a well known brand.

      • rogifan - 10 years ago

        Beats headphones are designed by a 3rd party firm. I’m curious what engineers they have that Apple would want. I certainly hope nothing to do with headphones.

    • Paul Lancefield - 10 years ago

      I fully agree with your sentiment. It puzzled me too. Especially when you consider Apple is one of the largest manufacturers of speakers in the world and have excellent speaker tech and electronics/sound engineers. However, there are two things that make me think there is a totally rational answer for this.

      The first is Neil Young’s PONO Kickstarter project. I think all the major tech firms have been caught-out by how much consumer interest there is in very high definition audio. From a scientific standpoint (when “blind” sound testing is done) there is reason to think it has little value, but that doesn’t seem to be how the consumer sees it.

      The second reason is Apple’s penchant for pushing the market on to new technologies and standards. They did it with the removal of optical disks from macs, they did it with the removal of an Ethernet port from the MacBook Air, they did it with their move first away from Intel and then back again with the Mac OS. They are doing it with their conspicuous lack of USB port on the iPad and reliance on WiFi on the iPad. I fully expect they are about to do it again for what is now the oldest and most ageing form of connection on their mobile devices, the 3.5mm audio jack. I expect they will now have but one connector and serve audio peripherals needs through the lightening port. It will be possible to chain connections (a connection to power will allow you to plug in headphones as well. It may also be backed up by wireless and rechargeable headphones with a new higher throughput low power bluetooth style standard. Apple are, in other words, in my opinion, about to go all-in on HD audio, and suddenly all headphones with the older jack will seem outdated.

      Now consider there are 500 million very consumer active iOS users out there. Consider also how Apple have control over display space in their very popular stores and are able, in this regard to play kingmaker amongst the audio device peripheral manufacturers presented to customers. Consider now also how many are already Beats customers and how Beats fit in terms of design and quality materials in that environment, how consumers like the appearance diversity and individuality (even if they actually have neither). If I am right on this, I predict Beats are about to encounter a Tsunami of upgrades and Apple have figured that since they are creating this inevitability, they may as well own the company so they own the profit.

  2. Free speech.

  3. iPadCary - 10 years ago

    I pray to Satan above that this DOES NOT go through ….
    #TimMustGO

  4. David Day - 10 years ago

    I hope it doesn’t go through. Beats is the Apple anti-culture, to put it mildly.

  5. Benjamin (@NSbenjamins) - 10 years ago

    “well-placed source” = I just made it up based on rumors somebody made up, but since there’s no announcements for weeks I am going to make some adjustments to the made up rumors.

  6. clarkberryman - 10 years ago

    It is going to be very entertaining to see whoever came up with the initial prognosis continually walk their story back until we find that it started when Tim Cook threatened Thermonuclear War against Beats streaming service if Dr. Dre doesn’t shut it down. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here!

  7. Thelonious Mac - 10 years ago

    I heard the Beats people were ticked off when Apple got rid of the Weed selling game.

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.