Tag: acquisitions

Chinese technology firm Bytedance bought social-video app Musical·ly for reportedly north-of-$800m in November 2017. Then, in August 2018, it folded Musical·ly into TikTok (obligatory reminder: Musical·ly had nothing...

US politicians have been expressing unease about TikTok and its Chinese parent company Bytedance in recent weeks. Now it seems the latter company is facing a national-security review of its 2017 acquisition of social app...

Vivendi’s latest quarterly financial results yesterday provided us with an update on the company’s plans to sell up to half of Universal Music off to partners. Talks with Tencent to buy up to 20% of UMG continue: Vivendi said that...

Shazam reached 478 million annual active users in 2018, which is 78 million more than in the previous year. The company’s revenues fell by 23% to £31.4m last year, but it swung from a loss of £17.7m in 2017 to a profit...

Another story for the soon-to-be-bulging file of ‘TikTok killers’ – most of which will turn out to be anything but. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google “has held discussions” about...

Music firm Concord has announced its latest acquisition: Chicago-based independent label Victory Records, including the catalogue of its sister company Another Victory Publishing. The deal was for an undisclosed amount, although Billboard’s...

Spotify announced its latest acquisition yesterday afternoon: it’s bought ‘music and audio production and collaboration marketplace’ SoundBetter. That’s a site that helps musicians find other musicians, producers...

Big moves are afoot in China’s music-streaming world, with reports that tech giant Alibaba is acquiring a 20% stake in NetEase Cloud Music, as part of a wider $2bn investment in the latter’s parent company NetEase. MBW suggests that...

Festicket is the company that sells tickets AND travel to festivalgoers, currently working with more than 2,000 events worldwide. It’s just announced an acquisition that it hopes will fuel its next stage of growth. Festicket...

“eOne is on the rise. They’ve had a great couple of years, and they’re getting more diverse and more aggressive in the things that they do,” Techstars Music boss Bob Moczydlowsky told Music Ally yesterday, in our...

Spotify has made another acquisition in the podcasts space, but this time it’s an individual show rather than a production company or recording app. Spotify is now the owner of ‘The 500 With Josh Adam Meyers’, a music-focused...

There’s a whole sub-genre of YouTube channels and Instagram accounts dedicated to documenting ‘drama’ – the breakups, makeups, shade and almighty rows within the world of social-media stars. Today, music-industry...