Nokia is ending its bundling of free music downloads with cellphones in 27 countries, where it has gained little traction since its 2008 launch.
The world’s top cellphone maker will continue to sell phones with 12-month subscription to free music downloads in China, India and Indonesia and with 6-month subscriptions in Brazil, Turkey and South Africa.
Ovi Music Unlimited, previously known as Comes with Music, is a music subscription that has been included on some Nokia phones. It allows users to download an unlimited amount of music to their PC or over the air to the phone. After the subscription is over users can continue to listen the tracks they have downloaded.
Nokia unveiled the service in late 2008 — but the Comes With Music program has lacked operator support and failed to attract many customers. All four major labels — Vivendi’s Universal Music, EMI, Warner Music Group and the music arm of Sony — signed up for the service, which was seen at start as a major challenger for Apple’s iTunes.
Reasons behind the lackluster performance include use of older supporting handsets for the product at its launch, digital rights management (DRM) software that tied downloaded music to the device and a difficult to understand product offering.
“The markets clearly want a DRM-free music service,” said a spokesman for Nokia, adding the firm continues to offer DRM-free tracks through its music store in 38 countries. DRM software limits sharing of songs between different devices.
iTunes accounts for 70% of worldwide online digital music sales, making the service the largest legal music retailer. Other services besides iTunes, such as Spotify, also offer access to music on their smartphones for a monthly fee.
Consumers with the free music bundle in the 27 countries where the sale of the service have stopped will continue to have access until their subscriptions run out.
