Apple Acquires Music Analytics Startup Semetric As Part Of Expected Beats Revamp

Apple has acquired British analytics company Semetric, as part of its latest efforts to reboot and relaunch Beats Music this year. Semetric is the startup behind Musicmetric, an analytics tool used by artists and labels to track sales and social media activity.

While Apple and Semetric haven’t confirmed the acquisition, documents filed with the U.K.’s Companies House registrar show Semetric’s change of address to 100 New Bridge Street, London, home of Apple Europe Ltd., according to the Guardian. The Musicmetric service, which launched in 2008, tracks several metrics for artist popularity, including but not limited to social media fans, YouTube plays and downloads on file-sharing platforms such as BitTorrent.

Though Apple hasn’t disclosed the purpose of the acquisition, the Guardian notes that it would complement the U.S. company’s purchase of Beats Electronics, which closed in August for $3 billion. Since the purchase, Apple has been rumored to be working on a relaunch and rebrand of the Beats Music service, possibly rolling it into its iTunes music platform.

The Cupertino, California, company is also looking to negotiate with music labels to bring the cost of the service down to $5 a month, according to Re/Code. That would undercut rivals including Spotify, which offers subscriptions starting at $9.99. While Semetric signed a deal to track Spotify data in 2013, it’s unknown if that deal will continue following Apple’s acquisition of Semetric.