Zune Partners with Univision.com

Univisión.com, the top Spanish-language site visited by U.S. Hispanics, has entered into a three-year exclusive partnership with Microsoft Zune, which will now make Zune the site’s exclusive online music download provider. This partnership will provide the 15 million unique browsers that visit Univisión.com monthly with easy access to Zune’s 4 million-song catalog.

Univisión.com, the top Spanish-language site visited by U.S. Hispanics, has entered into a three-year exclusive partnership with Microsoft Zune, which will now make Zune the site’s exclusive online music download provider. This partnership will provide the 15 million unique browsers that visit Univisión.com monthly with easy access to Zune’s 4 million-song catalog. It will also serve to distinguish the struggling Zune from music download giants, most notably iTunes and Amazon.com, although search engines will still direct browsers seeking physical music to purchase to other competitor sites that offer this service.

Speaking on the partnership, Univisión’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer, Cesar Conde said, “Music has been at the forefront of Univisión’s offerings. I think the natural extension in this day and age is to have the ability to search and download their music.” Echoing Conde, senior marketing manager at Zune, Javier Farfan, further mentioned, “We really want to make sure that Latin music is part of our overall Zune strategy.”

While online sales of Latin music are typically low, comprising only 2.2 percent of Latin album sales so far this year, Hispanics are more likely to pay for music downloads and more likely to use their mp3 players than the rest of the U.S. population. Additionally, Hispanics spend an average of $100 a year on music downloads while the remaining US population only averages about $80 a year.

Hoping to increase online sales of Latin music beyond 2.2 percent, Zune has reduced its price on select Latin recordings by 50 percent.