Motorola Plans Music Service For India; Avoids US Market
By Nikhil Pahwa - Mon 08 Oct 2007 05:37 AM PST
That Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is focusing on music to sell its handsets in India is pretty obvious from it’s promotional campaigns with Bollywood superstar Abhishek Bachchan. ChicagoBusiness reports that the company is ready to launch MotoMusic, it’s music service, in India. MotoMusic has been operational in China for three years now, with content offered in partnership with Chinese telcos. However, while China has two telcos, Motorola will have to deal with 12 telcos in India. Lack of adequate payment mechanisms, low broadband penetration (just around 2.5 million connections) and rampant piracy in India also make an online portal pointless. While mobile music sales are expected to surpass physical format sales this year, this includes Caller Ring Back Tones (CRBT (NYSE: BT)s) which are operator dependent and have a recurring monthly cost.
Motorola apparently has no plans to launch the music service in the United States, since that might anger US carriers who offer their own music services. Carriers are Motorola’s biggest customers in the US.
Posted in: Companies, Motorola, Entertainment, Mobile Music
