Amazon buys Audible.com, leaves iTunes in the dust
Audible, a popular audiobook service, sold its soul yesterday, though it wasn’t it to the devil. Amazon and Audible have been partners since 2000, when the online store began selling Audible’s content, but now it belongs to Amazon despite that Audible still sells its content on iTunes.
Amazon purchased Audible for $300 million according to Valleywag, a full 20 percent above yesterday’s closing price. This is bad news for the iTunes Store, which gets its audiobook content from Audible. It’s unknown what will happen with Audible’s content on iTunes, but it seems obvious that Amazon won’t renew Audible’s deal with iTunes.
Though audiobooks may not seem like the best market to get into right now, there’s more to this deal than meets the eyes. By acquiring Audible and taking it away from iTunes, Amazon’s digital download store suddenly seems that much more sweeter and iTunes seems that much more sour (plus there’s that DRM issue too).
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February 1st, 2008
Danny, Danny, Danny.
Your analysis doesn’t seem “obvious” to me at all, as iTunes reportedly accounts for about 25-to-30% of Audible’s revenue. Is Amazon going to buy Audible and then drop their biggest customer?
Further, should Amazon “drop” Apple then Apple is likely to “drop” Audible support from iTunes and from future generations of iPods and iPhones, leaving Amazon with, well, no market whatsoever for its wares.
Be a great way to commit suicide.