International supermarket group Tesco has taken control of the WE7 online music service for a purchase price of £10.8 million. It follows Tesco’s acquisition of video service blinkbox last year and comes just a few days after rival supermarket Sainsbury’s bought an eBook retailer.
WE7, which had musician Peter Gabriel as an early investor, launched its streaming service in 2008. It allows users to create a free personalised ‘radio station’ by telling the service which songs they like and which they don’t like.
The service is available online and via iOS and Android mobile apps.
Mark George, Digital Director at Tesco, said “Customers and technology together are transforming the way we listen to music. Tesco is already one of the UK’s largest retailers of CDs; this move will help us offer a greater choice for the growing number of customers who want to access music instantly on any device, whenever and wherever they want. WE7 has a great team and a good technology platform from which we can launch a range of digital music services in the future.”
Tesco currently has a 91% stake in WE7 and plans to purchase the remaining shares in the next few weeks.