Telefonica Invests In Rhapsody To Export Napster

Taking Napster Abroad

Spanish-based mobile carrier TELEFÓNICA is buying a significant piece of music media group RHAPSODY, which will enable it to bring RHAPSODY-owned NAPSTER to its LATIN AMERICA markets, FINANCIAL TIMES reports. Exactly how big that "significant" investment is was not disclosed.

“TELEFÓNICA can earn equity in return for subscribers,” RHAPSODY SVP/global head of product PAUL SPRINGER said. “It will be meaningful enough aligned with the company but not enough to push out existing shareholders.”

TELEFÓNICA -- which has about 200 million customers in LATIN AMERICA, BRAZIL, ARGENTINA, COLOMBIA, CHILE, PERU and MEXICO -- already has a music streaming service called SONORA. Its "hundreds of thousands" of existing customers will be ported on to the NAPSTER platform.

TELEFÓNICA will also offer bundled NAPSTER music services to subscribers in its European markets, as well as preload NAPSTER on FIREFOX-based smartphones sold in LATIN AMERICA. TELEFÓNICA Digital chief executive of new business ventures STEPHEN SHURROCK said, “As demand for streaming music services takes off, our RHAPSODY partnership will allow us to deliver a compelling music proposition to our customers, leveraging NAPSTER’s heritage, brand and strong position in this market.”

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