Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) is bringing its mobile music service back to life in the U.S., but this time, it's free of charge, free of ads and streamed from the Web. The handset maker unveiled Nokia Music stateside on Tuesday, ahead of its Nokia World conference, having already re-launched in Europe.
The service is available exclusively to Lumia handset owners in the U.S. as a downloadable app and features 150 pre-made playlists from U.S.-based musicologists and global artists, as well as the ability to create your own playlist from a warehouse of millions of songs. The tunes work offline as well, and the app includes a "gig finder" function that taps into Nokia's location capabilities to find shows that are happening near the user. (See Nokia, 21 Others Explore the Great Indoors and Nokia Puts Itself on the Map.)
Nokia is also teaming up with its Lumia 900 carrier partner AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Green Day to promote the app with an exclusive concert and playlists for AT&T's customers. The app is Nokia's second music-focused announcement, following a streaming radio app that it plans to include on future Lumia handsets as well. (See Nokia Starts Over With Mobile Music.)
Why this matters
This isn't Nokia's first crack at mobile music. The handset maker used to operate Comes With Music, later Ovi Music Unlimited, a subscription music service it shut down in early 2011 due to lack of interest from consumers and from carriers. The market dynamics around mobile music have changed in recent months, however, thanks in large part to over-the-top apps like Pandora Media Inc. and Spotify that have popularized the "freemium" model, which peppers non-paying users with ads but loses the marketing for monthly subscribers. (See Comes With Carriers? and Nokia Unveils Comes With Music.)
Attracting operator support for Nokia Music, which it seems to have with AT&T, should help make Nokia Music an attractive alternative to other OTT options if you are a Lumia handset owner. How Nokia will make money on the ad-free service, however, is less clear.
Nokia World will take place in NYC tomorrow, where the handset maker is expected to announce its first Windows 8 devices, as well as many more updates to its smartphone strategy. (See OS Watch: Samsung Beats Nokia to Windows 8, Euronews: Nokia Won't Waver on Windows and Microsoft Sets a Windows 8 Timeline.)
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— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile
