Tesco boosts its digital profile by buying an e-book firm

UK SUPERMARKET CHAIN Tesco has announced that it has acquired e-book firm Mobcast for £4.5m in a bid to bolster its digital presence.

Tesco, which recently acquired music streaming service We7 and digital TV firm Blinkbox, today announced its plans to challenge Amazon in the e-book market.

While most of us have never heard of Mobcast, the digital book maker founded by ex-soldier come author Andy McNab boasts a catalogue of more than 130,000 books that can be read on Android, IOS and Blackberry devices.

McNab seems fairly chuffed with the buyout, saying, "Being acquired by Tesco ensures that this original vision will be available to as many people as possible."

Michael Comish, CEO of Tesco Digital Entertainment added, "We want our customers to have the widest choice in digital entertainment.

"We are already one of the UK's largest booksellers and Mobcast will help us offer even more choice for the large and growing number of customers who want to buy and enjoy books on their digital devices whenever and wherever they want."

Tesco is fast becoming a major player in the digital entertainment market. In June it announced plans to acquire Spotify rival We7, following its buyout of TV service Blinkbox. The UK supermarket giant also introduced free in-store WiFi last year. µ