Amazon turns up volume, buys Audible
Ear ear
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Amazon.com said today that it has agreed to buy digital spoken word audio provider Audible Inc for $11.50 a share.
The online retailer valued the transaction at about $300m which includes Audible's cash and short-term investments.
Under the deal, Amazon said it will start a cash tender offer to buy all of Audible's remaining shares.
New Jersey-based Audible sells around 80,000 programs that include audiobooks from the likes of Stephen King and Jane Austen.
The firm, which was founded in 1997, also has operations in the UK, Germany and France. The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year, subject to the normal regulatory requirements.
Amazon has been increasingly sniffing around the so-called digital content market.
In November it released its Kindle e-book reader which plays audiobooks and before that it launched a new DRM-free music store – Amazon MP3 – to rival Apple's iTunes.
Amazon's press release is here. ®
COMMENTS
Audio books
I'm also a happy Audible.co.uk customer. I've been listening via my mobile phone (symbian 60) for a while now. I have it set-up to download the next 2 hours of my book every night via wifi network whilst I'm asleep.
I also like that you can always download the titles again (alan partridge always stands up to repeat listening) and you can buy a subscription like the dvd rental services, which makes longer books affordable!
@Richard Eustace
I had the same subscription, and yep i did eventually find that convert with goldwave but it was too late for me, i had already spend bundles on cds by then. When i approached audible about non ipoders they said tough get an ipod!?!?!?!.
The amount of business this company must have lost because of this, my local libary has made a killing since (and its a whole lot cheaper!).
The one nice thing that the site does is allow you to re download your files if needs must (unlike itunes),
Good idea if you have an ipod or one of the other players, but there are cheaper and easier alternatives, local libary was £2 per book the last time i visited.
@ray
For one, I am happy Audible customer. I did not know that they even pretend to support MP3, though. I bought the device that is listed on their website as compatible (iRiver Clix2 ) . The format might be encrypted, but I do not care (much) - as long as I can use the files I bought, I have no problem with their DRM.
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