Nokia snaps up Loudeye

Nokia, the world’s leading mobile handset vendor, Tuesday announced a $60m (£31.5m) deal to acquire mobile music platform Loudeye.

The Finnish company, which now refers to top end handsets as “multimedia computers”, plans to use the acquisition to put mobile music services and applications on the device as well as giving users the ability to buy music direct from the device.

Loudeye operates 60 live services in over 20 countries across Europe and South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The company aggregates rights and content from all the major labels and hundreds of independents and has a licensed catalogue of over 1.6 million tracks.

Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president and general manager of multimedia at Nokia, hinted that the N series would likely be first in the portfolio to benefit from the acquisition.

“Music is a key experience for Nokia and Nokia Nseries multimedia computers.With this acquisition, we aim to deliver that vision and a comprehensive music experience to Nokia device owners during 2007,” Vanjoki.