Amazon.com announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Joyo.com Limited, a British Virgin Islands Company, which operates the Joyo.com Web sites (www.joyo.com and www.joyo.com.cn) in cooperation with Chinese subsidiaries and affiliates. The Joyo.com Web sites are the largest online retailers of books, music and videos in China.

Founded in 2000, Joyo.com offers customers a wide selection of books, videos and DVDs, music, software, toys and gifts, and health and beauty products. Through this acquisition, Amazon.com will blend Joyo.com's expertise in serving the Chinese market with Amazon.com's experience as one of the world's leading online retailers. This combination will allow Joyo.com to improve its customer experience and grow its business.

"Becoming a part of the Amazon family is great news for our customers," said Lin Shuixing, president of Joyo.com Limited. "Amazon.com has always put the customer at the center of everything it does, and we look forward to making Joyo.com even better for our customers in the time to come."

Joyo.com will become Amazon.com's seventh global Web site. The transaction is valued at approximately $75 million, including approximately $72 million in cash and the assumption of employee stock options. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter 2004, although it is subject to customary closing conditions.

According to Bloomberg, sources said Amazon.com made an unsuccessful offer to take over Dangdang.com, a Joyo rival, in July (http://digbig.com/4bnxb).

Amazon's competitors already have a presence in China. Yahoo has a joint venture with Sina Corp., China's largest portal, to operate an online auction business, and eBay owns Eachnet, a Chinese online-auction site.

Amazon representatives did not get back before press time to respond to questions about whether Joyo.com offers online-auction or Amazon Marketplace-like components.