Nokia offers music for free

With Nokia starting to spin out mobile devices that come loaded with its music download service, the Finnish company is eager to see how consumers would use its 3.5-million music library, currently offered free. “Nokia”, said Adam Mirabella, global director, Ovi Music Services, “is experimenting with both coupon-based pricing model and pay-per-download model that can be applied to its music service.”

“We haven’t decided the prices yet, but it will be very affordable,” he assured. Nokia, which has more than 50 per cent market share in the Indian handset market, believes that ad-supported song track downloads can enable free downloads. “Given the fact that music is so freely available on the internet, people don’t really want to pay for the music. That’s where we think an ad-supported model would work well instead of pay-per-download,” said Mirabella. The handset vendor has already launched this service in 26 countries.

According to a Nielsen survey, 70 per cent Indians are willing to pay for online content if they get the right to copy it and share it with others. The survey also noted that nearly seven in 10 Indians (69 per cent) would rather pay for individual pieces of content, instead of subscribing to the entire website.

Nokia claims that strong distribution deals with all the big music labels like T-Series, IMI, Sony-BMG, SaReGaMa, among others, means there will be few gaps in the music store service, with most music tastes amply catered for. Meanwhile, Nokia music service is adding regional sound tracks too. “We are focusing on the South Indian market, since we have seen that nearly 30 per cent of the content downloaded from our stores is for the regional sound tracks,” said Mirabella.

Adding thousands of tracks every month to its content library, the Finnish giant has also started training its retail partners to further promote the music service among the new buyers and existing customers. “Mobile devices that do not come pre-loaded with music service can get one downloaded from a Nokia store. These store fronts will also act as our touch-points for selling music coupons that enable song downloads,” said Mirabella.

Nokia’s music download service competes with Apple’s iTunes service that charges an average $0.99 for each track downloaded. Nearly 15 mobile devices, where prices start from Rs 7,000, come pre-embedded with the music download service. “With every new phone purchase, we offer specific number of songs that can be downloaded and played on the phone. Users can also sync it with a PC and play it on multiple platforms without any DRM restriction,” informed Mirabella.

Today, mobile devices have emerged as one of the most preferred media for listening to music, and the revenues from mobile music is expected to grow to nearly 23 per cent of overall music revenues by 2010, according to a KPMG report.