MUMBAI: Apple is making another big move this year. The Cupertino-based company is acquiring Shazam to bolster its music services. According to TechCrunch, Apple is all set to buy the popular music-recognition app in a nine-figure deal that could be valued around $401 million.

Shazam has crossed 1 billion downloads in September 2016, which will eventually benefit Apple. After the acquisition, the existing products of Shazam would blend with Apple.

Shazam has already integrated with Siri, but the acquisition gives Apple a path to deeper personalised recommendations through the virtual assistant integrated with Apple Music.

Shazam Entertainment, founded in 1999 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang, and Dhiraj Mukherjee, is a British app development company that created an app that can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. According to its CEO, Shazam was one of the top ten most popular apps in the world in December 2013.