Carphone Warehouse launches a Spotify rival

MOBILE PHONE SELLER Carphone Warehouse has launched a music service that could be a big threat to Spotify when it comes to streaming music onto mobile phones.

For £30 a year, a lot cheaper than Spotify’s £10 a month, users will be able to stream their entire music collection to their computer, laptop or smartphone.

Carphone Warehouse launched its 'Music Anywhere' service together with Catch Media and supported by the music industry, with six million tracks from all the four major labels - Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner.

It works by 'fingerprinting' the user's personal library and works with Iphones, Blackberrys and Android handsets.

A Music Anywhere app will sync with a user's home library and allow listening without needing Internet access due to 'smartcaching' their most played songs. The app also provides ways to organise and playlist music.

It could be a big rival to Spotify due to the lower pricing, and it's often the case that users listen to streamed songs they have in their music collection but not necessarily on their portable devices.

It's also a solution that's palatable to music companies, with the technology offering them the ability to track song playback on how artists are doing - without revealing private information, the companies hastened to add.

To get the Music Anywhere app, you need to subscribe to Carphone Warehouse's MyHub portal, or at one of its stores.

One hopes retailers are beginning to figure out that there is money to be made from digital music. Last week HMV recently opened its own Itunes style music download service. µ