Nokia and Loudeye Corp. have signed an agreement for Nokia to acquire Loudeye for approximately US$60 million. Loudeye provides digital music platforms and digital media distribution services. Under the terms of the agreement, Loudeye stockholders will receive US$4.50 per share in cash for each share of Loudeye common stock.
By acquiring Loudeye, Nokia is positioned to offer consumers a comprehensive mobile music experience, including devices, applications and the ability to purchase digital music.
Nokia believes the multi-function mobile device will become the preferred medium for enjoying music. With music optimized products like the Nokia N91 and other Nokia devices, Nokia sold more than 15 million music enabled devices in the 2nd quarter of 2006, making it the world's largest manufacture of digital music players.
Tens of millions of Nokia devices have a music player and every Nokia Nseries device incorporates a music player and an FM radio, as well as support for a wide range of digital music formats including MP3, M4A, AAC and WMA.
Loudeye operates 60 live services in over 20 countries and multiple languages across Europe and South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, where it works through a partnership with Coca-Cola in the CokeTunes service.
Loudeye aggregates rights and content from all the major labels and hundreds of independents and currently offers licensed catalog and complete media for over 1.6 million tracks.
