Rhapsody moves into Europe with Napster International buys
The Swedish-founded Spotify moved into the United States last summer, and now Rhapsody is moving in the other direction to expand across Europe.
Touted by the company itself as "America's number-one premium subscription music service," Rhapsody has bought and will now operate Napster International in the United Kingdom and Germany -- arguably the two most valuable markets for digital content across the Atlantic.
Rhapsody first launched in 2001, but it grown much more rapidly in the last year. The digital music service has over 1 million paid subscribers and a content library of more than 14 million tracks across approximately 600 genres.
In October, Rhapsody acquired the U.S. branch of Napster from Best Buy, taking on its subscribers and other assets.
The company's president, Jon Irwin, explained in a statement about Rhapsody's expansion and that how it will now be able to "bring the Napster service to even more consumers on a variety of platforms."
This is the perfect time to extend our borders—both geographically and technologically, as we take our service to new places, including the automobile and the living room. Consumer demand for subscription music has never been greater, and our partners are eager to bring music to the masses in new and creative ways. There is a lot of room for growth in this market and I firmly believe that 2012 is going to be our biggest year yet.
Rhapsody underwent a significant revamp last September, but company reps promise that subscribers will see more enhancements and new features for both the desktop and mobile platforms -- most notably improved offline playback quality.
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