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June 14, 2007

Music Labels and Carriers to Steal iPhone Thunder

Nick Gonzalez

30 comments »

musicsationlogo.pngAccording to Reuters, British Omnifone has signed deals with the big four music labels (Universal, EMI, Sony/BMG, and Warner Music) and 30 cell carriers to sell subscriptions to unlimited music downloads on cell phones.

No doubt this is in response to the iPhone/iTunes integration and Apple’s existing iTunes mobile extension. The spread of iTunes on mobiles, which cuts out carrier commissions, has carriers worried.

musicstationscreen.pngThe service, called MusicStation, will work on all 2.5-3G compatible phones. It is being released throughout Europe, starting today with Sweden, a full two weeks before the iPhone release. They expect 80% of Western Europe’s existing phones to be compatible with the service.

MusicStation costs 2.99 euros/week or 1.99 pounds/week for downloading an unlimited number of songs. Songs take about 15 seconds to download and by the end of the year Omnifone expects to have a library of over 1 million songs. The application lets you make playlists, find new artists, and follow artist specific news.

Some alternative mobile music services are MyStrands, Avvenu, Pandora, or mobile Rhapsody radio, which costs $6.95/month. However, a study conducted last year found 44% of users had no interest in downloading music to their mobiles and only 6% of users would download music from their mobile provider.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. wayne lambright

    June 14th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    Wow, that could be huge.

  2. Kyle

    June 14th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    Competition is good for the consumer, and in the mobile market, long overdue. Please release in America.

  3. Dan

    June 14th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    Might want to add Nutsie to that list of “other mobile music apps.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1cpegGquY

  4. Wes

    June 14th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    It would be good if this could be released around the world soon.

  5. Kyle Johnson

    June 14th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    Why would anyone pay to rent their music yet again. Let’s see, in the US the RIAA wants you to buy a CD, then pay again to buy or rent your music to play on your computer, then pay again to rent your music to play on your phone. This in addition to the money the collect from web broadcasters and radio stations. Sorry, I’d rather not pay multiple times to rent the same music just because I have a different device.

  6. Prada Phone

    June 14th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Well Yahoo has the right idea charging a flat rate for millions of songs for downloads but their is always artists that think their ” Too Important ” for agreeing to such sharing of intellectual copywrite. Shania Twain is one of these greedy people.

  7. Phil M

    June 14th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    I really love Pandora and would hate to see them hit the deadpool (which, unfortunately, seems eminent). This looks like the kind of mobile platform they need. So Pandora, if you are reading, get on this. You are one epic Biz Dev deal and one hell of a intergration way from 1.) saving your epiclly awesome genome idea and 2.) actully making money.

  8. bill

    June 14th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    I’m not sure that retail is the way to go. The carriers in general need to move away from the walled-garden, AOL model of years ago. What is clear to me is that the iPhone is ushering in an era of parity between mobile and web… where the customer is not going to pay twice for their media. Sites like Cellfish.com and others that offer transitional media lockers to access via both web and mobile. Ultimately this will be monetized more by advertising or subscription than the ala carte model.

  9. Dave

    June 14th, 2007 at 7:42 pm

    Looks like Omnifone is far behind Didiom. Didiom’s ultra sleek app is free and I don’t pay any service fees.

  10. Kim Rampling

    June 14th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

    Sounds great 2.99 euros per week for unlimited downloads, but what about the Telco’s data charges? They have always screwed up their business models by charging completely exhortationate rates for date transfers to mobile phones. Anyone know if they have learn’t their lesson with this new service? Or will they expect us to pay an extra x amount of euro (you name the price depending on connection/download time etc., etc) PER song in data download costs, as they seem to right now?

  11. Tom

    June 15th, 2007 at 1:20 am

    Thats seriously cheap

  12. Thomas Knuewer

    June 15th, 2007 at 1:42 am

    Who would actually need this? It’s a way too expensive service in a closed environment. If you really think anyone wouldn’t buy the Iphone on which you’ll (hopefully) be able to synchronize your music from Itunes, because there’s another phone where you have to pay and pay for your music - then you’re falling for their pr rubbish. You might say, this poses a risk to Itunes sales - but not to the Iphone.

  13. Kenneth

    June 15th, 2007 at 1:43 am

    “… will work on all 2.5-3G compatible phones”

    Not true, they’ve launched with Telenor in Sweden with only 3 supported phones. (http://www.telenor.se/150_1.jsp?service_id=149347)

  14. LeavingTheDayJob

    June 15th, 2007 at 2:04 am

    @Kim

    According to their website there aren’t any data charges. Presumably they work in conjunction with the network operator. Which in turn means they’ll probably be limited to one operator per country initially as the networks will want exclusivity.

  15. Concrete Stain

    June 15th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    Happy someone is going to compete with apple /

    - that study although would / deter me - from competing

  16. Firefox Fan

    June 15th, 2007 at 9:56 am

    it is reasonable price and if it would work like last.fm i would not hesitate to subscribe. it’s now possible to connect your phone to any music device so services like those could become center of your home entertainment.

    most important thing is that we don’t have to pay for bytes to listen good music.

  17. Da Truff

    June 15th, 2007 at 10:20 am

    I buy music DRM free. I don’t RENT music and I don’t let anyone else decide how, where, when, and on which device I will listen to it.

    No music “rental” company will ever gain any kind of broad consumer support.

  18. Ed

    June 15th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    I agree with 5, 12, 17. I already have music and will get more that I can place on several devices. Why pay someone addn’l money monthly to rent music for just one device? Think about it, it doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t sound like competitive device to an iPhone.

  19. Scott H

    June 15th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Kim you are right - and there is no model out there where are carrier is not collecting data charges somewhere in the model. At 2.99 euros per week, the labels will be taking 50% minimum leaving the carriers to share 1.50 with Omnifone….this is not attracitive to a carrier, especially for heavy users. As the charges are being added to the carrier bill, a standard revenue share is roughly 40% of the end user price - so unless Omnifone plan to survive on what is left, I can’t see the model being sustainable. No thunder being stolen here.

    Also in January the press was saying “…that works on all major music handsets…” Sorry but that is far rom 85% - 90% per cent of handsets.

  20. alexislli

    June 25th, 2007 at 4:29 am

    Something to keep in mind. I’m guessing, but I’ll bet I’m pretty damn close.

    $599 - 8 gb iPhone (with 8.75 sales = $651.40)

    http://www.pspconverter.com/iphone_converter/

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