Sainsbury’s added another string to its entertainment bow today with a swoop for Anobii, an online vendor that lets users buy and review books from a library of 60,000 titles.
Anobii was previously controlled by the embattled HMV Group, which has offloaded the business for a princely £1. Its other shareholders include publishing giants HarperCollins, Penguin and Random House.
Sainsbury’s called the target a “valuable addition to our digital portfolio… showing our commitment to becoming a key player in the digital entertainment market”. The retailer launched a music download service earlier this year and bought Global Media Vault last October.
“It further demonstrates how we are constantly looking to innovate and seize opportunities that will support the future growth of our business,” the supermarket’s head of digital entertainment, Mark Bennett, said of today’s news, adding that Anobii’s use of social media was a “clear differentiator” from its competitors.
Investors gave the deal their blessing, with shares in Sainsbury’s up slightly this morning. Even so, the supermarket’s stock price is down by double-digits from the start of the year.
So tomorrow’s first-quarter sales update from the supermarket will be watched closely. Like-for-like sales are tipped to be up around 2%. That’s slower growth than in the previous quarter, despite a Jubilee surge, but still a lot better than this week’s other big set of numbers from Tesco.
Back on the subject of things digital, The Grocer has launched a new version of our website optimised for mobile phones. So if you’re going to be browsing on your iPhone or Android, expect to see a few differences.
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