What is Guvera and what does it have planned for Blinkbox Music?

Tesco has had a tough old time of late, with falling sales and a fresh investigation into its accounts. The battered supermarket needs to turn itself around, and fast, so it's been looking to offload any nonessential services that may have been dragging down its balance sheet. Unsurprisingly, that means its various Blinkbox offerings have been some of the first to face the chop. After selling Blinkbox Movies to TalkTalk, Tesco announced yesterday it had auctioned off Blinkbox Music and plans to close Blinkbox Books. The supermarket still has its Hudl tablets, of course, but some of the more interesting services that come pre-installed are now no longer under its control. Clearly, Tesco just couldn't make enough money from them, but any chance it had of fixing the problem has now been lost.

So who took Blinbox Music off its hands? That would be Guvera, a music streaming service based in Australia that's currently available in 20 markets, including the US, India and Thailand. Both Guvera and Blinkbox Music are focused on free, shuffle-based playlists, although dedicated users can unlock extra features with a subscription. Despite these premium tiers, both services are aimed squarely at casual listeners that want a cheaper, but still legal, alternative to Spotify and Rdio. It's one of the reasons why Guvera has targeted emerging markets such as Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines.

But now the company wants to expand even further. The UK is right at the top of its hit list, so when Tesco decided to look for a suitor for Blinkbox Music, Guvera's top brass were keen to get involved. The company had to battle with some "really big players," according to Michael Wallis-Brown, Guvera's Chief Commercial Officer, and wasn't "taken that seriously" when talks began. However, it was Guvera that ultimately sealed the deal.

The company wanted Blinkbox Music for a few different reasons. First of all, Tesco's team already has the relevant music licensing deals in place for the UK. Negotiating rates can be tricky for any newcomer, so these key relationships will likely accelerate Guvera's UK expansion. Secondly, Guvera was impressed with the people Tesco had working on the app. "Blinkbox had a lot of capabilities that we required, and a really good team, both on the go-to market side, as well as on the technology and product side," says Wallis-Brown.

If you're a Blinkbox Music user, you're probably wondering what happens next. Guvera has grand ambitions to tackle the rest of Europe, but it's also conscious of what Tesco has built and achieved in the UK. As a result, Wallis-Brown says the firm will maintain the Blinkbox app and brand in the short to medium term, while it works out the best way to introduce its Guvera app in the UK. "We don't just want to say, 'well now you've got Guvera' and ram it down their throats." He says the team will also look at the updates that Blinkbox already had planned for its apps and, where possible, roll out these features as intended.

However, Guvera is committed to developing its own apps and a global brand, so at some point a transition will inevitably occur for Blinkbox Music users in the UK. The company is now working on what Wallis-Brown calls "Guvera 3.0," which will be a combination of both Blinkbox Music and Guvera's services. Tailoring its app for different markets, which includes reflecting the music that's popular locally, has been crucial to Guvera's success so far. That approach is partly why it has such a lucrative partner agreement with Lenovo, which ensures its app comes pre-installed on the Chinese giant's smartphones and tablets.

But the bottom line is this: if you're worried about the future of Blinkbox Music, you can rest easy for now. Nothing drastic will be changing in the immediate future -- at least that's what Guvera is saying. Of course, the company has plans for its own music streaming service in the UK, so eventually you may need to decide where your loyalties lie.