On Thursday's episode of MarketFoolery, Chris Hill and Motley Fool Funds analyst Tim Hanson dive into some of the numbers circling around tech giant Apple's (AAPL 0.64%) purchase of Beats By Dre. Seven months ago, HTC sold its Beats stake for about $260 million (valuing the company at about $1 billion). Today, Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in cash and stocks. With the company's last public reports showing 10% operating margins, Tim thinks Beats investors must be pretty happy.
Chris and Tim also explore Beats' past muddied partnership with HTC and the synergy between Apple and Beats. Tim has to ask, "Is Apple spending $3 billion here just to be cool?" Then, the guys look at the Beats brand and how this acquisition will impact the music landscape overall, including streaming music leader Pandora (P).
