Dr Dre Smiling All The Way To The Bank As Apple Buys His Beats Earphones For $3.2 Billion

May 9, 2014

Dr. Dre, who founded Beats electronics with record producer music producer Jimmy Iovine. The firm could now be sold to Apple.

Good deal!

Stylish headphone maker Beats Electronics (also known as ‘Beats By Dre’) finalized a deal to sell to Apple for a reported $3.2 billion.

Apple is in the market for a subscription-based music service to complement its ‘iRadio’ ad-based offering, launched in 2013 as part of an attempt to jump into a music-streaming arena then split between a handful of startups such as Pandora Inc.

Founded by rapper Dr. Dre and legendary music producer Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics is best known for its ‘Beats by Dr Dre’ line of trendy headphones that vie with the likes of Skullcandy Inc, Sennheiser Electronic and Bose Corp.

Dre – who guided the careers of a string of rap artists such as Eminem and 50 Cent – compared his company with Apple in 2011.

‘We’re trying to eventually be second to Apple. And I don’t think that’s a bad position,’ Dre told The Fader music website.

Beats Electronics received a $500 million investment from Carlyle Group in September that valued the company at over $1 billion. It also bought back in September a 24.84 percent stake held by Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp, which once held as much as 50.1 percent of the company.

Few hours after the deal,Dre shared a video of himself and Tyrese celebrating, were he says;‘First billionaire in hip-hop, right here on the mother-****** west coast,‘ See the photo after the cut…