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Beats Electronics LLC (also known as Beats by Dr. Dre, or simply Beats by Dre) is an American consumer audio products manufacturer headquartered in Culver City, California.[1][2] The company was founded in 2006 by music producer Dr. Dre and record company executive Jimmy Iovine. Since 2014, it has been an Apple subsidiary.
The subsidiary's product line is primarily focused on headphones and speakers. The company's original product line was manufactured in partnership with the AV equipment company Monster Cable Products. Following the end of its contract with the company, Beats took further development of its products in-house. In 2014, the company expanded into the online music market with the launch of a subscription-based streaming service, Beats Music.
For a period, the company was majority-owned by Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC. The company reduced its stake to 25% in 2012, and sold its remaining stake back to the company in 2013. Concurrently, Carlyle Group replaced HTC as a minority shareholder, alongside Dr. Dre and Iovine in late 2013. On August 1, 2014, Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion in a cash and stock deal, the largest acquisition in Apple's history.
Beats was established in 2006 by music producer Dr. Dre and record company executive Jimmy Iovine.[citation needed] Iovine perceived two key problems in the music industry: the impact of piracy on music sales and the substandard audio quality provided by Apple's plastic earbuds. Iovine recalled that Dre said to him: "Man, it's one thing that people steal my music. It's another thing to destroy the feeling of what I've worked on." Iovine sought the opinions of musicians with "great taste", such as M.I.A., Pharrell Williams, will.i.am, and Gwen Stefani during the early developmental stage.[5] Beats initially partnered with inventor Noel Lee and his company Monster Cable, an audio and video component manufacturer based in Brisbane, California, to manufacture and develop the first Beats-branded products, and debuted its first product, Beats by Dr. Dre Studio headphones, on July 25, 2008.
To promote its products, Beats primarily relied on celebrity endorsements by pop and hip-hop music performers, including product placement within music videos, and partnering with musicians and other celebrities to develop co-branded products.[5][6][7][8] Beats' use of endorsements by musicians helped the company aggressively target the young adult demographics.[9]
In August 2010, mobile phone manufacturer HTC acquired a 50.1% majority share in Beats for $309 million. The purchase was intended to allow HTC to compete with other cellphone makers by associating themselves with the Beats brand,[10] as the purchase also granted HTC exclusive rights to manufacture smartphones with Beats-branded audio systems.[11] Despite its majority acquisition, HTC allowed Beats to operate as an autonomous company.[11] Luke Wood, President of Beats in May 2014, joined the company in January 2010, when the company was a "licensing business". Wood had previously worked under Iovine at Interscope Records.[12]
On January 19, 2012, BusinessWeek reported that Beats and Monster would not renew their production contract and their partnership ceased at the end of 2012. Dre and Iovine subsequently decided to oversee the entire operation of the company, from manufacturing to R&D,[12] and aimed to double its workforce to around 300 employees. Monster would ultimately begin marketing its own competing line of premium headphones aimed towards an older demographic.[6] At the time, neither Dre, Iovine or Wood were experienced in the operation of a company at such a grand level, but Wood explained in 2014:
In July 2012, HTC sold back half of its stake in Beats for $150 million, remaining the largest shareholder with 25.1 percent.[15] The sale was intended to provide "flexibility for global expansion while maintaining HTC's major stake and commercial exclusivity in mobile".[10] In August 2013, reports surfaced that Beats' founders planned to buy back HTC's remaining minority stake in the company, and pursue a new, unspecified partner for a future investment.[16][17]
On September 27, 2013, HTC confirmed that it would sell its remaining stake in Beats back to the company for $265 million. Concurrently, Beats announced that the Carlyle Group would make a $500 million minority investment in the company.[18][19] The overall deal valued Beats Electronics at $1 billion[3] and helped HTC turn a net profit of $10.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, following HTC's first quarterly loss in company history.[20]
The appointment of a new chief operating officer (COO), a role previously filled by Wood,[12] was announced in early November 2013. Matthew Costello, formerly of IKEA and HTC, was formally appointed to the role in May 2014.[21][22]
On January 21, 2014, the company launched Beats Music, a subscription-based online music streaming service.[23] Prior to the launch of the service, Beats stated that it intends to provide a different type of streaming experience to what was available on the market at the time. Additionally, the service would only be available to consumers in the U.S. at inception.[24]
The acquisition closed on August 1, 2014. Dr. Dre and Iovine were hired as executive employees,[32][33] and worked at Apple for years afterward.[34] To eliminate redundancy, Apple planned to lay off 200 workers from Beats' workforce of around 700.[35][36] Beats Music was discontinued effective with the launch of Apple Music on June 30, 2015.[37][38]
In July 2014, Bose Corporation sued Beats Electronics, alleging that its "Studio" line incorporated noise cancellation technology that infringed five patents held by the company. Bose has also sought an injunction which would ban the infringing products from being imported or sold in the United States.[41][42] The lawsuit was settled out of court. Apple pulled all Bose products from its retail outlets, although it is unclear whether it was in response to the lawsuit, an ambush marketing conflict involving Beats and the NFL (which had recently named Bose as one of its official sponsors, and thus fined a player for displaying the Beats logo during an official activity), or as a result of Apple's acquisition of Beats.[43] However, two months later, Bose products returned to the shelves of Apple Stores. The companies settled in October 2014: details were not disclosed.[44]
In June 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that in retaliation for the lawsuit, Apple Inc. revoked Monster's membership in the MFi Program on May 5, 2015, meaning that Monster can no longer manufacture licensed accessories for iPhone, iPod and iPad products, and must cease the sale of existing licensed products that contain the certification or technology licensed through the program by September 2015.[48]
The case was dismissed in August 2016, with a Supreme Court ruling that Beats "had the right to terminate the agreement as of January 7th, 2013 or when there was a transaction resulting in a change of control of Beats", and that Monster "did not obtain the right to approve the change of control. Nor did the agreement require that any change of control had to be objectively reasonable".[49]
Beats' original product line were Beats by Dre headphones. In promotional materials, Dre outlined the line's advantages by alleging that listeners were not able to hear "all" of the music with most headphones, and that Beats would allow people to "hear what the artists hear, and listen to the music the way they should: the way I do". In comparison to most headphones, Beats products were characterized by an emphasis towards producing larger amounts of bass, and are particularly optimized towards hip-hop and pop music.[4][50][51] In October 2012, Beats unveiled its first two self-developed products, the Beats Executive noise-cancelling headphones (to compete with similar offerings by Bose and Sennheiser) and the Beats Pill portable speaker.[6][14] In October 2015, Beats launched a new collection of speakers including the upgraded Beats Pill+ Speaker.[52]
The Beats Solo Pro is an on-the-ear style headphone. Along with the Powerbeats Pro true-wireless earphones, they are part of a new generation of Beats products made from the ground up with Apple. They are the first on-ear headphones made by Beats to feature active noise canceling. They were sold alongside the Solo 3 until November 1, 2021.[53]
The Beats Solo 3 Wireless is an on-ear style headphone. It can last for 40 hours on a single charge or indefinitely when plugged in via the headphone jack.[54] It has a Micro-USB connector for charging.[54]
Released in October 2017, these are high-end headphones produced until 2023, when they were replaced with the Beats Studio Pro. They connect by Bluetooth and have 40 hours of battery life, with 22 hours of battery life with adaptive noise cancelling on. They feature Apple's W1 chip for quick connection to Apple devices running iOS 10, macOS Sierra, or watchOS 4 or later. They also feature pure adaptive noise cancelling technology, which uses microphones both inside and outside the ear cups to measure sound levels based on the environment. If there is any headgear or eyewear on the user's head, it calibrates the noise cancelling and volume level accordingly. The headphones come in a wide range of colors and editions, including black, blue and special collections such as the "NBA Collection".
Released July 19, 2023, these are high-end headphones which feature noise cancellation, transparency mode, and are the first Beats to feature USB-C and Loseless Audio through USB-C connections. They also feature Personalized Spatial Audio and is compatible with Find My. They start at $349 in the US and work with Android 10 and later and iOS 16.5 and later.
On September 7, 2016, Powerbeats were released. On February 10, 2017, BeatsX neckband-style headphones were released.[55] Powerbeats Pro were released on May 10, 2019, in the United States and 2 weeks later for UK and Europe.[56] The latest iteration of Powerbeats was released on March 18, 2020, sharing design concepts similar to that of the Powerbeats Pro from the year prior.[57] On October 14, 2020, Beats Flex neckband-style headphones were released as the evolution of BeatsX.[58] On June 14, 2021, Beats Studio Buds were released, and priced at US$149.99.[59] On November 5, 2021, the Beats Fit Pro were released, featuring a novel "wingtip" earbud design to enhanced stability during fitness workouts. On May 18, 2023, Beats Studio Buds Plus were released as a sequel to the original Beats Studio Buds, Priced at $169.99
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