Aspiro launches hit-driven mobile music store for full-length tracks

Aspiro launches its first mobile music stores for downloading of full-length tracks direct to the mobile phone today. The first stores are available at Telia’s wap portal Surfport and at wap.Mobilehits.se. There will be further launches of music stores for full-length tracks with additional partners in the Nordic region during this spring.

The launches at Telia Surfport and Mobilehits are the first in a series of planned launches in Sweden, Norway and Denmark this spring. Aspiro has solid experience from distributing real music to the mobile phone, coming from its market leading position within the ringtone segment. In Sweden Aspiro sells three times as many ringtones than the total sale of CD singles per year and in Norway seven times as many ringtones than sold CD singles per year. Aspiro has used this experience to build a hit-driven music store for full-length tracks to the mobile phone. The music offer will be hit and news focused, complemented with a number of old favourites. Initially the number of track will be limited to a couple of thousand and the portfolio of tracks will increase continuously. Commenting, Johan Lenander, Aspiro’s CEO, said: “Just like the distributors of music to PCs, we have access to several hundreds of thousands of tracks, but we have chosen to focus our offering to products that have the highest demand among consumers. Within mobile services it is crucial to facilitate and make it easy for consumers to find what they are looking for, especially since the screen on the mobile phone is small and the transmitting speed is lower compared to a PC.” The regular price for downloading a full-length track starts at SEK 15. Additionally, campaigns and package solutions will be a large part of the offer. The price depends on which record label the track comes from. The tracks are delivered in an AAC format, for maximum quality and minimum time for downloading. The service is available for most 3G phones. The music service is available at Telia’s wap portal, mobil.teliasurfport.se and through Aspiro’s own Swedish wap portals; wap.mobilehits.se, wap.inpoc.se and wap.cellus.se. In Norway the service is available at no.mobilehits.com.