Amazon is betting big on digital media. This morning it announced the $300 million acquisition of Audible (a 7 percent premium to Audible’s $280 million market cap at the time of this writing). Audible is the leading provider of audio books in digital form, with a library of 80,000 titles. As Amazon begins to generate a greater share of its revenues from digital media, owning a digital publisher will help its margins. It should be able to offer audiobooks at a lower cost, which in turn will help grow that segment of its sales. There is no doubt that as media becomes more digital, Amazon sees it as critical for its future. Media accounts for 59 percent of Amazon’s sales, most of that still being physical books , CDs, and DVDs. Audible.com is the leading online provider of premium digital spoken word audio content, specializing in digital audio editions of books, newspapers and magazines, television and radio programs and original programming. Through its web sites in the US and UK and alliances in Germany and France, Audible.com offers over 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from well-known authors such as Stephen King, Thomas Friedman, and Jane Austen, and spoken word audio content from sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Fresh Air and Charlie Rose.http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-amazon-buying-audible-for-300-million/
http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?GUID=4477416&Page=MediaViewer&Ticker=AMZN
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