Aspiro, the other Swedish unlimited music service operator, is selling a 6.5 percent stake to Norwegian entertainment retailer Platekompaniet for SEK 16 million ($2.5 million / £1.5 million).
Platekompaniet, which, like HMV (LSE: HMV), sells music, games, DVDs and Blu-rays, already run Aspiro’s main service, WiMP, as a joint venture in Norway. But now Aspiro is gaining Platekompaniet’s shares to get total control of its Norwegian subsidiary, instead giving Platekompaniet a stake in the parent group along with the new share issue. The deal means the retailer will get to share in any success Aspiro finds outside of Norway.
In the UK, DAB and internet radio maker Pure has become the latest to offer an unlimited subscription music service. Pure Music joins Spotify, Rdio, Mog, We7 and the others. It goes online in December, will work across Pure’s radios, web and smartphones, starting at £4.99 per month.
Platekompaniet CEO Rolf Presthus: “We have become convinced that streaming is the future way of comsuming music and that WiMP can achieve very good results on many markets. Through taking each music market seriously, and at the same time going for a multi national approach securing economy of scale, we see the opportunity to create the best music service on the market.”
Aspiro white-labels its unlimited-music subscription service WiMP to operators. It has 300,000 customers and this spring said would offer the service as well as mobile TV services to the 700,000 subscribers of Telenor Canal Digital pay-TV operator in its native Norway – a SEK 50 million (£4.85 million / $7.9 million) deal.