Nokia Comes With Music bombs
NOKIA'S MUCH TRUMPETED 'Comes With Music' service is struggling to make an impact on worldwide sales despite a massive marketing push and a spend that's widely thought to be in the millions of dollars.
Figures published by Music Ally suggest that a paltry 107,000 users have signed up for the service worldwide, with by far the biggest uptake for the free music service being in the UK.
The partnership between the Finnish mobile giant and Universal, Sony, BMG, EMI as well as truckloads of local independent labels was launched in December 2007.
The service, which allows subscribers to legally download more than six million tracks and keep them forever, has failed to capture the imagination of users despite the rapid rise of digital delivery.
Comes With Music seems to be doing marginally better in emerging markets but the figures, which were reportedly sent to record labels and distributors, will have Nokia rethinking the whole idea sooner rather than later.
Confusion over DRM and whether downloaded tracks can be converted to other formats or played on other systems have contributed to the dreadful sales figures, but Nokia is blaming the failure on poor marketing and support. Free services like Spotify have also made fixed term contracts tied to airtime deals seem less attractive.
Add that to some very unhealthy Q3 numbers in the company's latest financials and it would seem that not all is well in Finland.
Nokia insists that the scheme has only been running for a year and that things will get better. We reckon Sky Music and a relaunched Napster can only make things worse. µ
CWM figures since launch:
UK – 32,728
Singapore – 19,318
Australia – 23,003
Brazil – 10,809
Sweden – 1,101
Italy – 691
Mexico – 16,344
Germany – 2,673
Switzerland – 560
Total – 107,227
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What exactly are Music Bombs?
- and why has Nokia got them??
Re: Phil
They're like aural photon torpedos,
I've no idea why Nokia has them.
Simply... I would LOVE to download musics for free legally on a phone... IF the phone don't cost me an arm and a leg...
PLUS I need a mobile internet access plan to download them... So in places where those services carries a hefty price (like Brasil where I live) it's a no deal.
Heck, I prefer to buy a mp3 capable phone and stay listening to my illegal mp3s...
I used to love Nokia phones. But after N95 they have not made a single decent phone. They think they are a great software company like Apple, Google or Microsoft but they are wrong. Whatever was their strength in hardware they have lost that as well. Their crap phones are suitable for the third world only which gives them large number of low value sales. My votes are with Samsung , Sony and Apple for high quality design and engineering. I think Nokia and Motorola should sell their business to Chinese companies before they become bankrupt.
which of course makes all of USA pirates in mpaa terms :P
Hopefully my family are not included in them numbers... We for the last 2 months have been paying for the service without us having knowledge of it. My sister and I have used the service but only for a month then unsubscribed.My sister phone which can't access internet (really old) some how was still being charged for it, and she doesn't even use it EVER.
Neil, you won't have Comes With Music, it's sold as part of a package with specific models of phones and not as an add on service. That will be something your operator has tacked on without you noticing in the small print. Orange?
When measuring something we say LESS, when counting something (such as users in the UK) we say FEWER!
Tsk.
I've got a nokia 5800 and the Comes With Music service is great. I download on my laptop and then transfer to the phone. Most new songs in the charts are there plus pretty much all old stuff I can think to download. The only things not on the list are most of Metallic (who are famous for their dislike of music downloads, illegal or not), the yonly have Master of Puppets and Oasis (also only 1 album). I haven't checked Beatles (don't like them) but maybe some other big selling bands are not there.
The great thing about the service is the little bands and one hit wonders from the 70s onwards that I remember only vaguely - it's great to track down a song from a partial lyric then download it. My phone was only $10 less for the music service and it's paid for itself so many times over. Well worth it.
I have an N97 in the UK and I have bought and downloaded some albums from the Nokia Music Store over wifi (duh, who needs a data plan)). Does this count as one of the 32k CWM users in the UK?
I switched to a Nokia 5800 this summer after using other brands, I made a big mistake. Nokia's OVI Pc software is flaky and problematic and they do not seem in a hurry to fix it. The service they provide for music and applications download is nowhere as easy to use a Apple's - I will not be buying Nokia again after this exposure to their rubbish software.
- You don't need a data plan for CWM. A PC and/or wifi connection is enough.
- you can't buy it without a capable phone (this maybe changes/changed already
- OVI PC suite came out of beta just days/a week ago, have you been using beta since summer then Paul Harris? What kind of problems you have had with it then?
Nokia PC software is not the greatest, but I for example haven't had any problems with it (except it being Windows only and taking way too much memory for what it does)
@pwpht!: I don't think you can comment on this article if you can't tell the difference between Nokia Music store and Comes with Music. See there's only one common thing: "Music"
would kill *anything*.