The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Swell Mergers and Acquisitions Apple

Apple buys talk-radio station Swell for £17.7m

Author

By Ishbel Macleod, PR and social media consultant

July 29, 2014 | 1 min read

Apple is set to buy Swell, the personalised talk-radio station, for $30m (£17.7m) as it looks to add to its current iTunes streaming service.

The app, which builds a personalised radio experience for users, based on their listening preferences, has been shut down as part of the deal, with the Android version of the app – currently in beta – to never see the light of day.

Having been predicted that the move was coming, it was confirmed with a statemnt on the Swell website: "Thank you for using Swell over the past year. We wanted to let you know that the Swell service is no longer available. We’ve been inspired by the opportunity to create quality products that positively impact users’ lives, and we are grateful to all our listeners. Thank you everyone for your support!"

Ram Ramkumar, the chief executive of Swell, is expected to join Apple, along with other members of the Swell team.

This follows a rash of acquisitions by Apple, including Beats and, earlier this month, the book recommendation service BookLamp.

Swell Mergers and Acquisitions Apple

More from Swell

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +