Vodafone hits back at Apple with mobile music service
After losing out to O2 in the battle for the Apple iPhone UK contrac Vodafone is now launching a mobile music service to rival iTunes that will give its UK customers unlimited access to a range of over a million music tracks. The launch is apparently being timed for the start of the Christmas shopping season and is the result of a tie-up between Vodafone and Omnifone, a startup run by a group of British millionaires.
But there’s a catch.
Access to the music system requires subscription of £1.99 per week and as soon as you stop paying you are locked out of your music collection.
Vodafone UK’s head of mobile internet and content services, Al Russell claimed :
“This is a completely new movement within mobile music. People are obviously drawing conclusions about the iPhone but that is not our driver here.”
According to many analysts the iPhone is going to be a powerful but niche product and Vodafone believes that the full potential of mobile music lies in making it easier to buy and play tracks on any mobile phone.
Many of Vodafone’s 17.4 million UK customers may be able to use their existing handset to access MusicStation, which will go live in November and be available to contract and pre-pay customers. They will also be able to pick from the range of new phones that Vodafone announced yesterday as its Christmas line-up.
Rob Lewis, chief executive of Omnifone, which developed MusicStation said:
“A device like iPhone, at the end of the day, ties a consumer to an Apple strategy forever. It does not utilise the 3G data network, it is not even 3G compatible. It does not allow over-the-air downloads, it only allows downloads from iTunes using a credit card and it certainly does not allow unlimited downloads wherever you are. We hope to do for mobile music what Blackberry did for email.”
The MusicStation launch comes after news last month that Nokia is launching its own music service, selling tracks at 79p each, the same as iTunes. But it has yet to sign up with any network operators and, unless it can clinch such a deal, customers could pay heavily to download their music.
Vodafone has its own full-track download service, which charges 99p a track or £5 a month for seven songs, which it will retain.
