Apple look set to acquire Beats Electronics, the music steaming and headphones company set up by rapper Dr. Dre in 2006 for a cool $3 billion. Not only that, Dre and co-founder Jimmy Iovine will also become fully-fledged Apple employees as part of the deal, though no one is quite sure yet as to what their new roles will be.
Apple confirmed that, subject to approval from regulatory bodies, the deal will go through by the end of September this year.
Dre and Iovine founded the company eight years ago after noticing a gap in the high-end headphones market between the expensive, high-end over-ear headphones and the ear buds which had become almost ubiquitous since the rise of the iPod several years before. Speaking earlier this year, Iovine said: "Apple wasn't focused on sound. They were selling iPods."
Beats is the market leader in the headphones across the globe and took in around $500 million in revenue in 2012. It expanded its services to include music streaming this past January, launching a $10 a month service and hired Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor as Chief Creative Officer.
Speaking of the deal, Jimmy Iovine said: "I've always known in my head that Beats belonged with Apple. The idea when we started the company was inspirited by Apple's unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple's deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special."
(Via Rolling Stone)
