Amazon.com announced today it is acquiring Audible.com—the US’s largest provider of digital downloads of spokenword audio—for about $300 million. Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide Digital Media Steve Kessel said Audible “offers the best customer experience, and the widest content selection in the industry.”
Amazon will be buying Audible’s outstanding stock at $11.50 per share, as well as assuming Audible’s outstanding stock-based awards. Audible (Nasdaq: ADBL) closed yesterday at $9.33, before the deal was announced (it’s 52-week high was $14.22 in November). Audible had sales of $78.8 million during the first three quarters of 2007 (an increase of 34% over the previous year), for a net loss of $1.5 million (vs. a loss of $7.7 million the previous year).
Don Katz founded Audible in 1995, in Newark, New Jersey. The company currently has about 150 full-time employees, most in New Jersey, but also some in London, England. It has a library of about 80,000 audio programs comprising about 200,000 hours. At press time, the site claimed 1,735 science fiction and fantasy titles, and another 290 horror titles.