Developments on Nokia’s Music Stores

Written by Meraj Chhaya on April 24, 2008 – 9:08 pm

In three days there has been a lot of positive progress for Nokia’s bet on the music world. Nokia has noticed that the future of mobile phones is surrounded by multimedia, and the only way to win markets was to join the trend. Nokia’s Ireland Music Store opened in the beginning of the month, while on the 21st of April, Nokia opened its store in Australia, and just yesterday, in France. More important than that, is Sony BMG’s alliance to the Comes with Music campaign.

In Australia, Nokia celebrated the opening with an exclusive live album from leading independent and ARIA awarding winning group, The John Butler Trio. While in France, there were no special offerings as Nokia is still working with producers and music groups in order to enable that.

The best part of the Music Stores is that you just need a NSeries mobile phone that is featured in the campaign, completely replacing the use of the computer, although you can still use a computer for downloading tracks. The disadvantage in the offerings is the pricing. In Australia you will have to pay 1.70 Australian dollars per track and albums from 17.00 Australian dollars. The Nokia Music Store will also offer a monthly subscription for PC users to stream an unlimited number of full length tracks for 10.00 Australian dollars per month. In France, you will have to pay ?1.00 Euro per song and albums will start at ?10.00 Euros. With a ?10.00 Euro monthly subscription, users will have unlimited access to listen to the entire catalogue on their PCs.

“It is now access all Areas for Australia music lovers,” said Shaun Colligan, General Manager, Nokia Australia. “Not only we do we have millions of tracks available for consumers, but we have something for everyone, whatever their music tastes. Australian consumers can be confident that the Nokia Music Store will have a broad range of genres including popular and non-mainstream genres and independent artists.”

“The music industry isn’t just about selling songs; it is also? a special way to share new musical experiences. Nokia aims to provide the best music experience by building services into its mobile devices to satisfy users who want to be able to access their music collections anytime, anywhere, and for a reasonable price,” explains Eric Munier, music activities manager, Nokia France.

“The opening of the Nokia Music Store will also be an opportunity to introduce Nokia to the music industry in France. We look forward to cooperating with French labels and artists. In this context, the Nokia Music Store will allow artists to talk about their musical world and what they’re working on. Free songs will also be available each week in order to discover new talents,” continued Munier.

A great news to the Music Stores and especially to the Comes with Music campaign is the partnership with Sony BMG, so now users who buy phones featured in the campaign will have access to Sony’s catalogue of tracks and albums.

“As one of the leading major music companies in the world, our collaboration with SONY BMG means we can offer a huge range of fantastic music from both international and local artists via Comes With Music,” said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president and head of the Nokia Entertainment and Communities business. “It’s great to have them on board as we move forward with bringing our unlimited music bundle to the market.”

Mr. Ojanpera continued: “Nokia Comes With Music is an innovation that not only helps people discover and enjoy music, but also expand the overall business and revenue for the benefit of artists, labels and other rights holders.”

“This initiative represents a critical new way of gaining access to music, through which fans will be able to explore SONY BMG’s vast catalog of recordings for an entire year,” commented Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business & U.S. Sales, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. “We think this business model will encourage users to sample a wide range of material, expand their musical tastes, and listen to more music than ever before. In the process, we think it will provide new opportunities to artists from every genre of music, and increase demand for music overall.”

Source: Nokia [1] [2] [3]