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Sony Ericsson Announces Music Service For Handsets

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 September 2008, 13:00 CDT

Sony Ericsson said on Tuesday it will launch a mobile phone service with unlimited music downloads within weeks in an effort to compete with Nokia in expanding business beyond the sale of handsets.

Available solely through telecoms operators, Sony Ericsson's Play Now Plus will provide subscribers access to millions of songs, and users can keep up to 300 songs after their 6-18 month contracts end.

Sony Ericsson's marketing head Lennard Hoornik said in a few weeks' time the service will be available with Telenor.

Telenor will initially launch the service in Sweden and expand to other Western European countries in the middle of the 2009 first quarter and to other parts of the world in the second quarter, he said.

Paolo Pescatore, analyst with research firm CCS Insight, said it is a further music offer in an increasingly crowded market, designed to compete with Nokia's Comes with Music.

Users of Nokia's Comes with Music service, which will begin on October 17 in Britain, can download and keep unlimited amounts of music for a year. The service is expected to cost up to 70 pounds extra on top of the phone price.

Nokia has yet to release the price of the service, but analysts expect it to reach consumers with free phone offers from operators if clients sign up for 12- or 24-month contracts.

"In the long term music lovers will clearly be drawn to devices which will come with unlimited access to music. It is such an attractive proposition," Rob Lewis, the head of Omnifone, a technology partner for Sony Ericsson, told Reuters.

Price battles are getting tougher and consumer demand is slowing for cellphone makers, therefore many are seeking additional revenues from outside the maturing handset business.

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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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