Google looking to buy Soundcloud for a price of $500 million

With reports incoming in bulk towards the latter half of 2016 that fellow music streaming giant Spotify was looking to get their hands on Soundcloud for a acquisition price of $1 billion there was a lot of murmur as to what the future had for their Berlin based contemporary. But the deal never materialized for reasons unknown – although speculation suggests that it was due to apprehensions of possible damage to the brand due to IPO. And if latest reports are to be trusted, the entire ‘streaming wars’ has a new player.

Alphabet Inc., which is the parent organization behind internet-services giant Google. is planning to takeover Soundcloud for what is believed to be a price of $500 million – half of what Spotify were asked for.

Soundcloud is currently a privately owned company founded in Sweden in September 2007 by sound designer Alexander Ljung and Swedish artist Eric Wahlforss. As per current data, the streaming service has 40 million registered users (July 2013), 175 million unique monthly listeners (Dec. 2014). Soundcloud has three major stakeholders: Warner Brothers, Sony, and Universal Studios, with Universal being the biggest stakeholder with around 4%. If the acquisition does go through then the ‘Streaming Wars’ could potentially heat up in 2017.

Source:  Google Might Buy SC for $500 Million