A 36-year-old office worker, A, recently took out his smartphone, impressed by the music playing in a café. Although he is neither an iPhone user nor does he use Apple Music, he launched the 'Shazam' app without hesitation. After pressing the lightning-shaped button in the center of the screen, he found the song title and artist information within seconds, and A promptly saved the song to his music app.
Apple's music search app 'Shazam' has firmly established its dominance in both domestic and international markets by steadily increasing its user base for five consecutive years. Shazam, a music recognition service founded in the United Kingdom in 1999, was launched as a smartphone app in 2008 and acquired by Apple in 2018. With its artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it recognizes music playing nearby within seconds and provides song titles and artist information, garnering global popularity.
Notably, more than half of the total monthly active users (MAUs) come from Android devices. Despite being optimized for the Apple ecosystem, the app has transcended operating system (OS) barriers due to its accuracy and convenience.
According to mobile statistics analysis platform MobileIndex on the 14th, Shazam's domestic MAU last month was counted at over 335,000. This marks a 48% increase compared to March 2021 (approximately 227,000). During the same period, the number of Android users rose from 148,000 to 184,000, while iOS users increased from 79,000 to 151,000. Although the share of Android users among the total decreased from 65.1% to 54.9%, it still remains above half.
The 'monthly active device count,' which shows the installation base, has seen even steeper growth. The number of active devices rose from 503,000 in March 2021 to 976,000 this March, nearly doubling (up 94%). During this period, the number of Android devices increased from 325,000 to 544,000, while iOS devices expanded from 178,000 to 432,000.
In contrast, the competing app 'SoundHound' saw its MAU drop from 87,000 to 48,000 during the same period, a decrease of 44%. Despite improvements in accuracy, it has been analyzed that domestic users are showing a tendency to gravitate towards Shazam.
Industry experts cite several factors contributing to Shazam's growth: ▲ seamless integration with streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify ▲ AI-based 'Audio Fingerprinting' technology that finds songs even when sound quality is poor ▲ supplementary features like regional song popularity statistics and lyrics synchronization. Notably, Android users can also download the app for free from the app store, spreading the perception among the MZ generation that 'as long as the music is accurately found, the OS isn't important.'
According to Apple, Shazam has a global MAU of 300 million. Apple announced last November that Shazam's cumulative usage had surpassed 100 billion occurrences. This milestone was achieved 22 years after starting as a text service in 2002, explaining that 'every person in the world has searched for an average of 12 songs.'
A platform industry official noted, 'A culture has taken root among the MZ (Millennial + Z generation) to turn on Shazam when unfamiliar music plays' and added that 'as the competition in AI music search intensifies, Shazam's learning data and brand recognition will become key assets.'