Monster, the original designers and partners of Beats, apparently has no hard feelings about not being part of the $3 billion buyout of Beats by Apple.
Noel Lee, head monster at Monster, is being very gracious in his comments about the recent acquisition of Beats by Apple for an incredible $3 billion.
“Wow, a $3 billion deal for Beats is an incredible achievement for Jimmy and Dre. We are glad to see that the company that we started together would turn into a Monster,” says Lee.
His comments are magnanimous, given that Monster, which was the original engineer of the Beats headphones and partners for the first five years with rapper Dr. Dre and Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine, split ways with the duo back in 2012 after HTC Corporation of Taiwan, one of the 100 largest companies of in the entire world, bought 50.1 percent of Beats for $306 million.
“I want to thank Jimmy and Dre for pioneering the way in marketing and Beats Music, and putting a spotlight to the value of companies in our space. We will find the collaborations and opportunities that will change the game once again,” says Lee.
The entire episode was chronicled in an excellent article on Gizmodo. According to that article, while Monster did enjoy an incredible sales bump from Beats when the partnership was still in place, the company’s share from the HTC buyout was minimal, despite the fact that it had engineered the headphones from scratch.
Lee continues on the Apple buyout, “The size of this investment shows what can be possible with Monster with our own new technologies in the headphone and speaker space. We look forward to our future collaborations that opens our eyes to how companies like ours can be valued as a part of youth and music culture. It will be exciting to see how this marriage will explode the portable music category once again. Monster will indeed play an important role for bringing incredible music experiences to consumers, as it did when Monster created Beats.”
After the HTC buyout, Monster had to turn over all of the IP, manufacturing and distribution (retail channel relationships), according to Lee.
Today, Monster has moved on with its own headphone lines called DNA, Ntunes, iSport, Diamondz and Inspiration.
