Apple slicing Beats

About 200 positions at Beats could be eliminated as the Culver City headphone maker and streaming music service folds into Apple Inc., according to a Bloomberg report.

Apple agreed to purchase Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion in May, and the largest acquisition by price in Apple history is expected to be finalized soon.

All Beats employees are transitioning to Apple. But about 200 of the company’s 700 workers are receiving guaranteed terms of only three months to a year. They’ll have to compete for other internal openings beyond that, according to the report.

A Beats spokeswoman declined to comment.

Apple, which had 41,300 employees at the end of June, is eliminating duplicative positions such as human resources and finance staff at Beats, 9to5mac reported Wednesday. Much of the Beats team is expected to remain in Culver City.

Plans for integrating Beats into the Apple ecosystem haven’t been publicly laid out. Apple indicated in June that the Beats team could help shape a curated, subscription-based music service while analysts speculated that the headphone business would give Apple a new way to woo younger customers and enjoy high hardware profit margins all at once.

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