News

Tesco buys Mobcast

04.09.12 | Lisa Campbell

Tesco has bought digital book platform Mobcast for £4.5m in a bid to strengthen its digital entertainment offer in the face of growing competition.

The acquisition will provide Tesco with access to 130,000 digital books which can be read on smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

Mobcast was set up in 2007 by Tony Lynch and author Andy McNab.

Tesco bought film and television-streaming service Blinkbox last year and personalised internet radio service WE7 in June this year, strengthening its digital entertainment offering to customers. Tesco’s announcement this morning (4th September) comes on the back of Sainsbury’s announcement last week it had signed a deal with Rovi Corporation to provide a new digital video service for its microsite Sainsbury’s Entertainment. In June, Sainsbury’s also entered the digital book market, buying HMV’s majority stake in e-book business Anobii for £1.

Michael Comish, c.e.o of Tesco Digital Entertainment, said: “We want our customers to have the widest choice in digital entertainment. We are already one of the UK’s largest booksellers and Mobcast will help us offer even more choice for the large and growing number of customers who want to buy and enjoy books on their digital devices whenever and wherever they want.”

Tony Lynch, c.e.o of Mobcast, added: “Since we launched Mobcast in 2007, we have been passionate about innovation, the digital book market and allowing customers to read across their devices. We are delighted the products that Mobcast has developed will now be used to introduce the joys of e-book reading to more book lovers in the UK.”


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