AT&T to Begin Selling Digital Music From Napster

AT&T Inc., owner of the biggest U.S. mobile-phone service, will sell digital music from Napster Inc. to encourage customers to spend more on their monthly bills.

More than 5 million songs costing $1.99 each will be available starting next month, AT&T said in a statement. Customers can also pay $7.49 for five downloads a month.

AT&T is offering more mobile data services such as messaging, music and video to boost sales growth as prices of phone calls drop. The San Antonio-based company’s wireless-data revenue increased 67 percent to $1.7 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier, outpacing the 15 percent increase in overall mobile- phone service sales.

“We’re trying to earn returns on these service networks we’ve built,” Mark Collins, vice president of consumer data services at AT&T, said in an interview.

Smaller competitor Sprint Nextel Corp. has sold digital music for two years, while Verizon Wireless, the second-largest U.S. mobile-phone service, started a similar service last year.

In July, AT&T started offering music downloads from eMusic.com Inc., which specializes in music from independent record labels. Apple Inc.’s iPhone, sold exclusively in the U.S. by AT&T, can get songs from a mobile version of the iTunes music store over Wi- Fi networks in homes and coffee shops.

AT&T shares fell 20 cents to close at $41.17 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Los Angeles-based Napster rose 12 cents to $3.28 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Originally published by Bloomberg, AP, and staff reports.

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