Nokia ‘Comes With Music’ has been brewing since December and will launch in the UK first, out of any country in the world, sometime next month, ‘ with the exclusive pre-paid deal going to Carphone Warehouse, on the impressive Nokia 5310 XpressMusic ‘Comes With Music edition handset.
The ‘Comes with Music’ deal means that if you pay for the phone, you get free music downloads for a year, and a choice of around 5 million tracks. Customers also get to keep the downloads they make during their first year, and can download them to a PC or a handset directly and keep them on both.
It was only last month that Nokia enticed the third major label onto the platform, when the Warner Music Group agreed to allow its music into the deal after months of haggling. Originally Time Warner was worried about its songs being swapped illegally on the Nokia Mosh social networking site. Universal and Sony-BMG have already signed with the service, back in April when it was first announced. We would expect EMI and major independent labels to fall into line shortly.
The whole issue of music appearing on your cellular handset seems to be fraught with difficulties, and Nokia’s idea that the entire proposition needs to be free and incredibly simple, is perhaps beginning to resonate with the public and the record labels. Nokia expects to launch the service in multiple countries before the year end and expects it to shift a huge number of handsets in the run up to Christmas. Nokia has made all this possible by agreeing to give away some revenue to the record labels when it sells ‘Comes With Music,’ devices.
The Nokia ‘Comes with Music’ idea, first announced by Tero Ojanpera, executive VP of entertainment and communities for Nokia, at this year’s CTIA in April, goes one step further than a mere music store. It is very similar to an idea that Universal first tried out in the US with the Microsoft Zune MP3 player last October, which saw it get $100 for each device at the time it was purchased, and then it gave away music for free for the lifetime of the player ‘ although that deal was only one label, on one device in one country. Last year Nokia sold some 136 million music phones and that’s without this offer.
The device which has been chosen to lead the charge is the Nokia 5310, which almost has the dimensions of an iPod Nano, slightly longer and slightly thicker, but the same kind lightweight feel at 71 grams compared to 50 grams. It also matches the memory at up to 8GB and has 18 hours of music playback (compared to 24 on the Nano) and has a sleek finish and is one of the easiest music phones to operate. But then again it is a phone as well, and has a 2 MP camera.
Andrew Harrison, UK CEO, The Carphone Warehouse, said: “We expect the Nokia 5310 Comes With Music to be the gift for Christmas and at the top of all shopping lists. We know how much our customers love music and we hope to make music millionaires of people everywhere.”