Napster 2.0 Makes Tracks
First Week’s Results are Strong And Innovative Deal with Penn State University Shows Power and Appeal of Napster’s Premium Subscription Service
Los Angeles, CA - November 6, 2003 - Napster, a division of Roxio
(Nasdaq: ROXI) today reported its initial progress following the launch
of Napster 2.0 on October 29th. Since launch, Napster has sold more than
300,000 songs and thousands of music fans have joined Napster’s Premium
subscription service. Premium members have downloaded or streamed over 2
million tracks during the first week of the new service, and the Company
estimates that it will have in excess of 80,000 Premium subscribers by the
end of the year.
Demonstrating the broad appeal of the "all access" nature of its Premium
service, Napster and Penn State University today announced that Penn State
will offer Napster to its students. Penn State becomes the first university
in the nation to offer their students legal access to the world’s largest
library of digital music via the Napster Premium service. Penn State plans
to roll out access to Napster to its students in January and plans to extend
access to the music service to members of its alumni association in the
future. Penn State boasts the largest alumni association in the country with
nearly 150,000 dues-paying members.
"It’s great to see this powerful brand back in action as a legal music service,
and it’s clear the legal Napster is off to a great start," said Doug Morris,
Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group.
"Our first week’s results have quickly established the new Napster as one of
the largest online music companies in the world," said Chris Gorog, Chairman
and CEO of Roxio. "Napster’s winning combination of a la carte downloads and
a subscription service is clearly very compelling to both consumers and
partners. Our sales have surpassed our estimates for track purchases and we
significantly exceeded our plan for subscriber growth. Napster is off to a
very solid start and we’re particularly excited since our national advertising
campaign has just launched. Additionally, our retail initiative is off to a
powerful start -- early reaction to the Samsung Napster player has been great
and we expect that our prepaid Napster Cards will make an important contribution
to our growth. Napster’s back -- and music fans are responding very positively."
"From a financial perspective, the first week’s performance of Napster provides
a strong indication of the size of our opportunity," said Elliot Carpenter,
Roxio’s Chief Financial Officer. "Both the growth rate of premium subscribers
and the volume of individual track sales support our financial objectives and
should bode well for the future. We are projecting that revenues for our
online music division in the December quarter will reach approximately $5
million with the vast majority generated after the recent launch. Based on
these initial results, we believe that we are firmly on track to exceed current
analyst estimates of $30 million in revenues in fiscal 2005 for our online
music division."
Napster users are enjoying a variety of the many features available in the
service, but early trends show that the ability to browse across all music
genres, access years of Billboard charts, listen to the 40 interactive radio
stations, and share music files are among the most popular features of
Napster 2.0.
In its first week live to the nation, artists like Matchbox 20 (Rock), 3
Doors Down (Alternative), Norah Jones (Jazz), Beyonce Knowles (R&B), Justin
Timberlake (Dance) , Charolette Church (Classical), Ludacris (Hip Hop) and
Toby Keith (Country) with songs like "Unwell", "Here Without You", "Don’t
Know Why", "Baby Boy", "Rock Your Body", "Amazing Grace", "Right Thurr" and
"Beer for my Horses" led the Napster charts that track the most popular
downloads.
Napster 2.0 allows anyone with a Windows PC to freely sample the world’s
largest and most diverse online collection of music, featuring more than
500,000 tracks. A user-friendly interface allows people to quickly search
for music, discover new artists, burn CDs and transfer music to portable
devices. Without spending a dime, any visitor to the service can download
Napster 2.0, watch music videos on demand, listen to 30-second music clips,
browse decades of Billboard charts, read Napster’s online magazine,
Fuzz,
email music to friends, browse other members’ collections and take full
advantage of the most robust music recommendation engine ever created. Fans
can purchase songs for 99 cents each or $9.95 an album. They also have
the option to upgrade to Napster’s premium service, which offers all of the
free features of Napster 2.0 plus unlimited online and offline listening,
over 40 commercial-free, interactive music programs and additional community
features, all for just $9.95 a month.
About Napster
Napster ® is the world’s most recognized brand in online music. Napster
has content agreements with the five major record labels, as well as hundreds
of independents. Napster delivers access to the largest catalog of online
music with more than 500,000 tracks spanning all genres and artists from
Eminem to Miles Davis. Napster is a division of Roxio, Inc., (Nasdaq: ROXI),
the Digital Media Company, provider of the best-selling digital media software
in the world. Napster has offices in Los Angeles and New York.
* * *
Safe Harbor Statement
Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this
press release, in particular matters related to demand for the
Napster service, relationships with certain corporate partners
including marketing partners and hardware and software
manufacturers, relationships with content providers, and product
development, are forward-looking statements that are subject to
certain risks and uncertainties such as decreased demand for our
products, increased competition, failure to develop new products
or improvements to existing products, failure to maintain business
relationships with our partners and general economic conditions,
that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
projected. Additional information on these and other factors are
contained in Roxio’s reports filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), including the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form
10-Q as filed with the SEC on August 14, 2003, copies of which are
available at the website maintained by the SEC at
http://www.sec.gov.
Roxio assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements
included in this press release. Copyright © 2003 Roxio, Inc. All
rights reserved. Roxio and Napster are either trademarks or
registered trademarks of Roxio, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the
United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used
are owned by their respective owners.
Copyright © 2003 Roxio, Inc. All rights reserved. Roxio, the
Roxio tagline and Napster are registered trademarks of Roxio, Inc.
or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All
other trademarks used are owned by their respective owners.