Apple has bought the classical music streaming service Primephonic. The company announced in a release on August 30, by the acquisition “Apple Music Classical fans will get a dedicated experience with the best features of Primephonic, including better browsing and search capabilities by composer and by repertoire, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits”. The acquisition adds more than 75 million songs to Apple Music’s library and Apple is planning to use Primephonic’s data about classical track to improve search capabilities and browsing. Moreover, Apple announced plans to launch a music app next year, which mainly focused on classical music and combines Primephonic’s classical user interface with more added features.  Primephonic said in a statement posted on Monday that in order to reach more classical music listeners worldwide they need to partner with a leading streaming service. The major shareholder of Primephonic Gordon P. Getty concludes “Primephonic and Apple together can realize that mission and take classical to a worldwide audience”. The acquisition is going to help serving classical music especially to those listeners, who listen to other music genres as well.

Primephonic is no longer available for new subscribers and will be taken offline beginning September 7. Current subscribers of Primephonic will receive six months of Apple Music for free.

In my opinion, the acquisition is an important step for Apple to expand its monopoly position in Media. In the last years, Apple acquired dozens of companies to improve expertise in particular areas. In the music area, some of the largest and highest profile acquisitions have been music service Beats for $3 billion in 2014 or Shazam, the music-identification service in 2017. By adding and promoting specific music genres, the company presents Apple Music as a multifaceted service, where every user can enjoy their unique taste in music. Moreover, with the addition of classical music, Apple tries to diversify their listeners, and convince the older audience in particular, to use Apple Music.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/30/apple-buys-classical-music-streaming-service-primephonic.html