Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2004 | 9:18 a.m.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Yahoo Inc., which owns the world's most-visited Internet site, plans to purchase Musicmatch Inc. for $160 million in cash to add online music services.
The acquisition will increase the number of people that listen to music on Yahoo's site by 78 percent to 23 million, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said in a statement.
Chief Executive Terry Semel said the purchase would expand Yahoo's Launch Music site. About 140 million people a month visit Launch, where visitors can listen to music and buy downloadable songs from Roxio Inc.'s Napster service.
Semel has said the music site is another area where Yahoo is developing a specialized search engine to retain traffic.
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