Tesco acquires streaming music service

Supermarket giant Tesco has acquired a 91 per cent stake in Milton Keynes based streaming music service We7.

Music Week reports that the deal is worth 10.8m, and that Tesco plans to buy the remainder of the company’s shares in the coming weeks”.

The site, which changed from an on-demand service to an online DJ platform in 2011, currently has over 3m users and offers 6.8m tracks.

"Customers and technology together are transforming the way we listen to music,” Tesco’s digital director Mark George stated.

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.”

We7 Steve Purdham added: We are very excited by the prospect of teaming up with Tesco. With its loyal customer base, numerous marketing channels and international reach, we believe Tesco is the perfect partner to bring WE7’s music services to a wider audience.

Tesco has been an innovator in entertainment retailing for many years and we look forward to continuing this innovation digitally.”