Motorola to acquire mobile music distributor

By Stephen Withers
Monday, 07 January 2008 11:02

Strategy

Motorola is set to acquire Soundbuzz, Asia's largest online and mobile music company.

Motorola already operates its MOTOMUSIC service through carriers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the acquisition of Singapore-based Soundbuzz will extend its reach to India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

According to Motorola officials, well over 90 percent of all digital music content in Asia is sold via mobile channels.

Soundbuzz current offers an online music store, but only supports Windows Media DRM, making it useless to the millions of iPod owners in the region. The company also offers 'white label' services to mobile carriers that want to provide their customers with music stores.

It licences content from Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music, Universal Music and more than 45 independent labels.

Bill Werner, senior vice president, future solutions and technology for mobile devices at Motorola said the deal will "provide Motorola with one of the most extensive music libraries in the Asia Pacific region, advance our music and video offerings in Australia and South East Asia, and build on the success of our MOTOMUSIC Services in China."

Soundbuzz CEO Sudhanshu Sarronwala described Motorola as "the ideal partner" and said "This combination will help us extend our platform and create exciting growth opportunities for Soundbuzz's employees and our partner music labels."

Soundbuzz's headquarters will remain in Singapore.

Subject to customary conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. Terms were not disclosed.

Motorola had a short lived relationship with Apple, producing a handset that could play tracks purchased from the iTunes Store, predating the iPhone.