Apple Inc is close to buying headphone maker Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion, the Financial Times reported.The purchase of Beats, which also runs a streaming music service, would be Apple's largest ever acquisition, the newspaper reported. It said the deal could be announced as early as next week. (r.reuters.com/cap77v)Founded by rapper Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics primarily produces products under the brand "Beats by Dr. Dre" and competes with headphones made by Skullcandy Inc, Sennheiser Electronic and Bose Corp."This is really puzzling," said Forrester analyst James McQuivey. "You purchase companies today to get technologies that no one else or customers that no one has."
Apple Inc. (Apple) designs, manufactures and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players, and a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. Shares of AAPL fell by 0.73% or $-4.34/share to $587.99. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $388.87 and as high as $604.41. On average, 9931160 shares of AAPL exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 8215592.
Skullcandy, Inc. is a designer, marketer and distributor of performance audio and gaming headphones and other accessory related products under the Skullcandy, Astro Gaming and 2XL by Skullcandy brands. Shares of SKUL fell by 3.11% or $-0.22/share to $6.86. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $4.90 and as high as $11.40. On average, 746779 shares of SKUL exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 331224.
Source
