29 January 2008

Nokia to Share Revenue of Bundled Music
With Mobile Operators

Tero Ojanperä, Executive Vice President, Entertainment & Communities

Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, will share revenue with phone operators from a program to sell handsets with unlimited music access, Nokia's head of entertainment said.

Tero has played a defining role in the research and development work of Nokia’s business groups since joining

the company in 1990. Throughout his career he has consistently shown an ability to balance the strong elements of his scientific background with Nokia’s broader business strategies. Before being appointed to his current role, Tero headed Nokia Research Center (NRC) during 2002-2004.

"In those cases where we cooperate with operators, there will be an arrangement so they can get a piece,'' said Tero Ojanpera, in an interview today in Cannes, France.

The Finnish company unveiled in December the "Comes With Music'' program, which will allow customers to buy a phone with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks included in the purchase price. The service is introduced together with the Universal Music Group and Nokia is in discussions with other major music labels and they'll try to include more players into this.

Basically Nokia and Universal will allows you to GET and to KEEP music for FREE and it will not disappear once when the subscription is over and actually the only question is how much music you can get in this period in a good wi-fi environment ;)

Mobile-phone service providers including Vodafone Group Plc and France Telecom SA's Orange sell music downloads to subscribers to help lift average revenue per user. Nokia's shift into services has caused concern among phone companies about how revenue is spread among the players.

"A lot of phone companies have been doing some phones with music, but they have not been revenue drivers for the music industry,'' said Ojanpera, who spoke at the Midem music industry meeting in Cannes.

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