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Shazam celebrates 100 billion song recognitions

100 billion Shazam recognitions

22 years ago, Shazam, the go-to app for music recognition, was born. In 2018, Apple acquired the service for $400 million to integrate Shazam into its operating systems and streaming services. Now, Apple is reporting that Shazam has hit a major milestone: 100 billion song recognitions.

To help you better understand the scope of the number, Apple shared some interesting perspective facts:

  • 100 billion recognition is 12 songs per every human on Earth
  • It would take 3,168 years for a single person to clock 100 billion song recognition, assuming it does nothing but shazaming a new song every second.
  • Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things" took 178 days to generate 10 million recognitions. At that pace, it would take the track 4,800 years to reach 100 billion.

Modern Shazam is a quick and convenient app and a built-in service into Apple's operating system. For example, if you have an iPhone with an Action Button, you can map Shazam to it and quickly recognize the currently playing track (older iPhones can do that from the Action Center). However, in 2002, when Shazam was conceived in the United Kingdom, it required dialing a short number and holding a phone next to the music source. The user would then receive the name of the track via SMS.

Six years later, Shazam launched as an app on iOS, and in 2011, it had its first billion recognitions. These days, Shazam is available on all modern platforms as a standalone application that is famous for its fast and accurate music recognition.

If you are an Apple Music subscriber, you can check out the Top 100 Shazam tracks in a dedicated Apple Music playlist via this link.

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