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Cellphone music service unveiled

British mobile music company Omnifone unveiled its mobile phone-based music subscription service MusicStation yesterday, going live in Sweden with other European markets set to follow in the coming weeks.

The move is part of the British firm's plan to take a major piece of the market before Apple Inc brings its sought-after iPhone to market in Europe and elsewhere.

"They will be in stores on a wide variety of handsets -- Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung -- giving European consumers the ability to access their music from anywhere," Omnifone chief executive Rob Lewis said. "We've got to market first and ahead of the iPhone by many, many months."

Scandinavian provider Telenor launched the service with a weekly subscription price of 25 kronor (US$3.55). Mobile phones pre-loaded with the software were released in stores there yesterday.

"Telenor has always focused on delivering cutting edge services to its subscribers and with MusicStation we can deliver a truly next-generation music experience, giving our users the freedom to download an unlimited amount of music, wherever they are, for a small weekly fee," said Johan Lindgren, Telenor's chief executive.

The service works by letting users search, download and play music on their mobile phones and sync it with their personal computer to create playlists that can be shared with other MusicStation users.

The first rollout of the service is in Sweden, followed by Britain, France, Germany and several other countries in Europe "which will be launching or rolling out in the coming weeks," Lewis said, adding that a similar launch in Asia will come in about 60 days.
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