RealNetworks Inc., which acquired mobile telecom customers in U.S. and Asia with its purchase of WiderThan last year, has announced a series of deals that strengthen its position as a provider of music services that European mobile phone companies can offer their subscribers.
RealNetworks, No. 181 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, will pay $9 million in cash for Sony NetServices, which provides digital music services to mobile network operators in eight European countries. RealNetworks also announced a multiyear deal with Sony NetServices’ biggest customer, Vodafone Group plc, to support Vodafone’s music services across Europe.
Vodafone, which provides mobile phone service to some 200 million subscribers in more than two dozen countries, has been using Sony NetServices’ music offering in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Romania, the United Kingdom and France. TeliaSonera Finland also is a customer of the Sony unit.
Sony NetServices is a joint venture of Sony DADC, the Sony division that manufactures music DVDs and discs for software and video games, and Sony Europe. Its technology center in Salzburg, Austria, will be maintained, RealNetworks says. RealNetworks and Sony DADC also announced an agreement to work together to market their services to mobile telecom operators in Europe.
“We believe the addition of Sony NetServices’ technology and platform to our earlier acquisition of WiderThan places RealNetworks at the center of the emerging mobile entertainment space, and extends our geographic ability to serve mobile operators around the world,” says John Giamatteo, president of Technology Products and Solutions and International Operations at RealNetworks.
Sony NetServices’ StreamMan allows consumers to download songs or to stream music to mobile phones or personal computers. It has a personalization feature that tracks subscribers’ musical tastes in order to present them with other music they might like.
With the acquisition of Sony NetServices, RealNetworks says it has 12 music-on-demand telco customers with over 196 million mobile subscribers in 11 countries. The company also provides a hosted music service to 75 mobile carriers in 37 countries. WiderThan’s customers included Verizon Wireless in the U.S., SK Telecom in South Korea and Bharti Airtel in India.
RealNetworks also operates Rhapsody, an online music store that had 2.67 million subscribers as of March 31.
Back...
