Rhapsody has acquired Napster International in a move to expand its music subscription service to European countries. Rhapsody, which acquired Napster US last year, will retain all Napster International employees and plans to continue using the Napster brand in the UK and Germany, due to it being "widely recognized" in these regions.
Existing Napster subscribers will be migrated to Rhapsody's infrastructure in March, bringing new features and speed improvements alongside a new "web experience" — music libraries will be moved across at the same time. Rhapsody also plans to advance the Napster service in the coming months by upping offline playback quality and improving playlist management across its web client and mobile apps. The move will see Rhapsody offer a service in Germany ahead of its biggest European rival, Spotify. Rdio recently launched its own streaming music service in Germany, so the pressure is now on Spotify to respond.