Philips Adds Songbird Media Player to its Most Popular MP3 Players

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) and Songbird today announced a strategic partnership to include the Songbird media player on the 2010 line of Philips GoGear portable audio video players. Philips Songbird, one simple program to discover, play, and sync music and media, will be available worldwide for the 2010 line-up of Philips GoGear players including the new GoGear Muse, GoGear Vibe, GoGear Mix, GoGear Aria, GoGear Spark, GoGear Raga, and GoGear Cam.

Philips Songbird enables consumers to transfer their music collection to their GoGear portable audio video players, share playlists, find new music, purchase songs over the web, sync videos and photos and discover favorite bands that will be playing in their area. Consumers can add media to Songbird by importing their CD collection and from the music that is already on their PC. The first set of integrated partners for Songbird include the 7Digital and Songkick online stores. 7Digital makes recommendations for new music based on what customers have actually been listening to recently, while Songkick notifies listeners when their favorite bands and artists are coming to town and lets them buy tickets right from Songbird.

"Creating a fun and engaging experience for our consumers is paramount, which is why we chose Songbird. It gives consumers one simple program that works with all our portable devices." said Jasper Vervoort, Director of Strategy and Business Development, Philips Consumer Lifestyle. "Songbird is also an open platform, which means it gives consumers choice and offers opportunities for developers, web media/content, and commerce providers to offer an even more compelling, differentiated consumer experience".

Philips GoGear and Songbird

Philips Songbird will be available worldwide for the GoGear players beginning in March 2010. More information about each of the devices as well as Philips Songbird can be found online at www.philips.com/songbird. GoGear hardware can be purchased at major retailers in the U.S. and throughout the world.

"We are thrilled to have forged a strong partnership with Philips," said Jerrell Jimerson, CEO of Songbird. "For too long people who wanted to enjoy their music on the go have been forced to endure difficult solutions for transferring content to their portable devices. The Philips Songbird media player will offer a simple, flexible way to discover, download, manage and sync music for millions of Philips customers around the world."

About Royal Philips Electronics

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people's lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of "sense and simplicity". Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs more than 118,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 26 billion in 2008, the company is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in flat TV, male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.

About Songbird

Headquartered in San Francisco, Songbird was founded in 2006 with the vision of delivering a free and open media player for people to find new music, listen to old favorites and experience a deeper connection to the music they love. Today, Songbird is also available on a variety of portable media players and smart phones, so people can enjoy their media on the go. Songbird is built by a group of designers and developers that have previously worked on Winamp, Netscape Navigator, and Mozilla Firefox. Thousands of developers passionate about music, media, and open source platforms have contributed to Songbird by writing code and creating new features that bring the best of the open media web to the newest generation of smart phones and media players.

About 7digital

Established in 2004, 7digital is a leading digital media delivery company based in London and operating globally. Through 7digital's download store (www.7digital.com) consumers can access over 8,000,000 legal high quality MP3 music tracks as well as audio-books and videos at competitive prices across 16 countries in Europe and North America.

Combining 7digital's secure and robust technology platform with the broadest agreements in the digital media industry, the company provides comprehensive digital download services to a wide range of partners around the world. 7digital have worked with record companies, artists, FMCG brands, retailers, consumer electronics companies, fashion brands, advertising agencies and many other organizations to harness the power of digital entertainment - music, video, audio-books and e-books - to engage customers. For more information visit www.7digital.com/business.

About Songkick.com

Songkick is the home for live music online. Fans can track their favorite artists and Songkick alerts them when they announce a tour, with links to the cheapest tickets. After the gig, they can see and share photos, videos, posters, and setlists. Songkick is the largest database of concert information in the world with over 1.2 million concerts from 1960 to the present day.

SOURCE Royal Philips Electronics