Sony Ericsson is poised to launch its own music store in the coming months, but it won’t take the confrontational approach with operators adopted by Nokia.
Sony Ericsson has spent a large part of this year coveting music labels and operators for the service, which will launch under its PlayNow brand.
The company will soon announce a range of phones that the new PlayNow service will be available on, and has been striking revenue share deals with operators.
Sony Ericsson’s marketing director, David Hilton, told Mobile: ‘We’ve approached and had discussions with all the operators, and a number of those talks are still ongoing. It’s a good commercial opportunity.’
The manufacturer has been keen to point out to operators that there is little money in sales of music tracks, and has been emphasising the bigger margins operators stand to gain from selling data bundles.
The news from Sony Ericsson comes as O2 and Vodafone both announced their own music stores this week. O2 announced a tie-up with Sony BMG for its new service, while Vodafone has launched ‘Vodafone Music’, which will be available alongside the Omnifone MusicStation platform.
O2’s offer, MyPlay, is unlikely to be as compelling because it only offers tracks from one record label. The store is already live and full music tracks cost 99p, videos are £1.50 and tones cost £3.50.
Meanwhile, the Vodafone Music service allows customers to buy and download songs per track or album. It differs from Vodafone’s other service, MusicStation, which is effectively a rental service. Singles and albums from Vodafone Music cost an average of 99p and £7.99 respectively and customers can browse the store free of charge. The service is live now.
In addition, Sony Ericsson’s rival, LG, was expected to launch the MusicStation Max service on its handsets this summer, but the launch has suffered a setback. Nokia is also expected to unveil its unlimited free music store, Comes With Music, before Christmas this year.