Here’s a handy infographic made by Shazam to chart its 10 year rise:

Shazam also claims to generate $300m in digital music sales every year, this is 10% of the digital music market. To put that figure in context, iTunes currently holds on to a 63% share, Amazon 22%.

This revenue is generated from users being able to click through the relevant tag to purchase and download the track identified by the app. It’s a testament to instant gratification.

Not bad for what was essentially a gimmick that briefly kept me and my friends amused a decade ago, when it operated as a phone number you rang while in a club just for the fun of it, to now being a serious major player in the digital music market.

The UK

In the UK, Shazam has been highlighted as a contributing factor to the success of Lily Allen’s cover of Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’.

Of course the major reason why it’s a success is because it forms the soundtrack to this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, but when the advert was shown during a break in The X Factor a week last Saturday, 31,000 Shazam users didn’t know the song and used the Shazam app to tag it.

Lily Allen’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ appeared at number seven on the following Monday’s Live iTunes’ Top 10. 

The marketing machine has been in full effect around this cross-promotional strategy. John Lewis has broken its own records for social buzz, Keane has released a greatest hits album, which after two commercial failures wouldn’t have sold nearly as much if not for the advert, and of course Lily Allen timed her own comeback announcement to follow a week after the advert’s appearance.

Expansion

Shazam has introduced ad tagging to expand its empire. Going by the name Shazam Engagement Rate (SER), it’s intended to be a metric that tells brands how many times their ads were tagged and how large the audience was at the time.

There are currently 250 ads tagged on Shazam, and the results are only available to the advertisers who partner with Shazam.

Although Shazam has a clear aim to expand into analytics and help brands with marketing strategy, it is increasingly an integral part of how we interact with music; forming a useful second screen while watching television at home and helping to drive online music sales. 

For more on a similar topic, please read how brands are spending money on digital in the music industry and American Express: using storytelling to transform online music.