Amazon MP3 Planning 'Clustered' European Expansion

Amazon Founder & CEO Jeff Bezos

AmazonMP3 is now pushing a European expansion plan that focuses on country ‘clusters,’ according to confidential details shared with Digital Music News this week. Outside of the US, AmazonMP3 has stores in the UK, France, and Germany, and those countries will be the basis for the broader European spread.

“While AmazonMP3 is currently live in the EU markets of France, Germany and Great Britain, we would like to expand each store to a wider audience by introducing the concept of a ‘marketplace’,” an internal Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) email outlined. “‘Marketplace’ is defined as a cluster of countries with a single catalog and served by a single store.”

According to the correspondence, the current store in France (amazonmp3.fr) will expand into a cluster containing France, Belgium and Luxembourg. In turn, Germany (amazonmp3.de) will become a cluster that contains Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The British installation (amazon.co.uk/mp3) will soon encompass all of Great Britain and Ireland. Digital Music News has not received comment from Amazon offices in Germany or the UK*.

The structure means that an album or song must be cleared in every territory of a specific cluster, or the material will be pulled. “For a title to be available in the German marketplace it must have offers for Germany, Austria and Switzerland

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