Amazon makes move to acquire Audible.com
Today, Amazon announced that they have bought out the popular digital download site Audible.com. Audible is best known for their wide variety of digital content such as digital audio books, newspapers and magazines, television, radio programs and original programming. Audible boasts over 80,000 media files and is sure to help Amazon on their quest to stand atop the digital model.
“Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry,” said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s senior vice president for worldwide digital media. “Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience.”
Also, Donald Katz founder and chief executive of Audible.com, had this to say:
“This deal brings together two pioneering companies that share a long history of ceaseless focus on improving the customer experience, we are very excited to be joining a company as innovative as Amazon.com.”
When all is said and done, this deal will be completed during Q2 of 2008 and will cost over $300 million. The decision to acquire Audible.com seems to be a great move on Amazon’s part.
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That’s too bad Amazon will more likely raise the price. Audible has been great but their selection could be better with the buy-out.
on January 31, 2008 at 01:20 PM - LINKHi Kim -
As with all mergers / acquisitions, this one has its pros and cons.
On one hand, Amazon will allow Audible to carry more audio content due to their partnerships with a TON of publishers…
And on the other hand, what was once an Independent retailer has now been gobbled up by a corporate giant.
Who knows though… Amazon may end up LOWERING prices due to getting better prices from the publishers!? Thanks for the comment!
Regards,
Doug
on January 31, 2008 at 02:45 PM - LINKExecutive Editor | Gadgetell.com