The Wall Street Journal-20080201-Amazon to Buy Audiobook Seller Audible
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Amazon to Buy Audiobook Seller Audible
Full Text (163 words)Amazon.com Inc., seeking to expand its digital-content offerings, agreed to acquire audiobook seller Audible Inc. for about $280 million.
Over the past few years, Amazon has introduced and expanded its digital-media offerings, which now include a digital-music store, the Kindle electronic-book reader and a digital-video service. With the Audible acquisition, the Seattle company would nearly double the content offerings available for the Kindle, which it introduced in November.
The Kindle has free, built-in wireless Internet access and allows users to download books and other content directly to the device.
Amazon's offer of $11.50 a share is a 23% premium over Audible's closing price of $9.33 on Wednesday. Yesterday, Audible rose $2.09, or 22%, to $11.42 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.
Audible, of Newark, N.J., helped pioneer the distribution of audiobooks and other programming online. It offers more than 80,000 books, television programs and radio broadcasts that users can download.
