Apple buys Primephonic, prepares to launch its own classical music app

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Apple Music classical app due in 2022

Apple buys Primephonic, prepares to launch its own classical music app
(Image credit: Primephonic)

Apple has acquired Primephonic, the classical music streaming service, in a bid to expand its growing library of 75 million songs.

Primephonic will shut down for good next Tuesday, 7th September, the company says. Apple plans to launch a standalone classical music app, using Primephonic's user interface, in 2022.

Netherlands-based Primephonic is considered the world's largest specialist library of classical music. The service added hi-res streaming to its offering in 2017 and boasts over 3.5 million classical tracks from 170,000 artists across almost 230,000 albums and 2400 labels.

“Artists love the Primephonic service and what we’ve done in classical, and now we have the ability to join with Apple to deliver the absolute best experience to millions of listeners,” Primephonic co-founder and CEO Thomas Steffens said. “We get to bring classical music to the mainstream.”

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Tom Bailey

Tom is a journalist, copywriter and content designer based in the UK. He has written articles for T3, ShortList, The Sun, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, Elle Deco, The Sunday Times, Men's Health, Mr Porter, Oracle and many more (including What Hi-Fi?). His specialities include mobile technology, electric vehicles and video streaming.