Web bookstore company Amazon.com Inc has pounced on three internet companies in a bid to extend its markets internationally. Yesterday, Seattle, Washington-based Amazon acquired its UK equivalent, Bookpages Ltd, along with the German company Telebook Gmbh and the Internet Movie Database, another UK-based web site provider. Bookpages is one of the larger online bookstores in the UK, although competitors from major UK chains such as Blackwells and Waterstones have recently challenged it. Its site carries 1.2 million books, compared with Amazon’s 3 million. Telebook, with 400,000 German language titles, is the largest online bookstore in Germany. The Internet Movie Database was founded in 1990, and carries movie and television information. Online booksellers have been fighting publishers over the rights to sell titles worldwide, and Amazon’s strategy may be a way of getting round this. Each of the acquisitions has been accounted for as a purchase, and Amazon will incur total charges of $55m in cash and common stock, with Amazon issuing 540,000 shares of common stock as a result. Amazon also approved a 2-for-1 common stock split yesterday.
