MUMBAI : Apple on Monday announced it has completed the acquisition of Shazam, one of the world's most popular music recognition mobile apps.

Shazam has been downloaded over 1 billion times around the world and users identify songs using the Shazam app over 20 million times each day.

"Shazam was one of the first apps available when we launched the App Store and has become a favourite app for music fans everywhere," said Oliver Schusser, Apple's Vice President of Apple Music.

According to earlier media reports, Apple struck a deal with Shazam for a likely sum of nearly $400 million.

However, the plans of the phone company and music app collaboration are still unclear. Though Apple has shared its intentions of providing ad-free content for users for seamless enjoyment of music.

The music app industry has seen such tie-ups initially and has growth potential in India as well as across the world has been phenomenal. Many telecom services or phone companies have their own Music apps. A telecom service provider Airtel has Wynk, Samsung that also produces much sought after phones have recently struck a deal with Spotify or the much talked about deal between Saavn and Jio; the instances of phone production or telecom service providers collaborating with music apps are multiple.

While it’s a boon for the users, the contribution towards music industry eco-system is debatable. The data for 2017 shows that telecom industry across the world had their business in USD 1.4 Trillion whereas the music business managed USD 17 billion; a vast difference.

The inclusion of apps in the handset or phone service is a major attraction for users and buyers and cheap data plans make it even more attractive.

Shazam lets users identify songs simply by listening to the music playing around them.

The app will soon offer its experience ad-free for all users so everyone can enjoy the best of Shazam without interruption, said Apple.

Built by Shazam Entertainment Ltd, a British app development company, Shazam helps people discover, interact with and share video, audio or printed content across devices.