@ CTIA: Billboard Mobile: Nokia Discusses Upcoming ‘Comes With Music’ Service
By Tricia Duryee - Mon 31 Mar 2008 10:00 AM PST
In the morning keynote at Billboard’s Mobile Entertainment Live the day before CTIA, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Tero Ojanpera, EVP of entertainment and communities, took the stage to discuss a number of Nokia’s upcoming content plays, but dove deep on its recently announced “Comes With Music,” service in which consumers will get unlimited music downloads for a year with the purchase of a phone.
Revenue model: Ojanpera said this is a business for Nokia, it’s not about coming up with services to sell more devices. “It has to be sustainable,” he said. “There has to be money to be shared, and we will share with the partners involved.” For now, Nokia’s initial partner is Universal (he didn’t comment as to whether it was the rumored $80 per handset).
Other record companies: “There have been a great interest from companies big and small. The discussions are going really well, and we hope to make more noise around the concept in the future.”
Comes with other content?: On whether the “comes with music” business model could be transfered over to other content, such as games or TV, Ojanpera said: “I think it’s hard to say that, even though we at Nokia have to be forward leaning, it’s not yet fully in the marketplace. I can say with high confidence that preparations are going well, and we are finalizing the device range, and what markets we will launch, and we are supporting it with 10s of millions of dollars behind the marketing...We now focus on the music, and will other forms of content fit to the model? Gaming is now transactional, so I’m not yet sure. We’ve had some discussions that maybe video will fit into this category, but this has to be studied from a consumer standpoint.”
Disclosure: MocoNews.net is a media partner for Billboard’s Mobile Entertainment Live.
Posted in: Companies, Music Labels, UMG, Nokia, Conferences, CTIA
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