Nokia “coming with music” to Asia?

Nov 24, 2008

Nokia is gearing toward launching its “phone bundled with music” offering to Asia. At the recently held Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, head of entertainment and communities for Nokia China, T C Pan, said they [Nokia] are working on the implementation details with the labels to bring “Comes With Music” (CWM) to Asia and Greater China.

“I believe country by country CWM will be launched in Asia and Greater China next year and the year after, just like the launches of Nokia Music Store,” he said.

However, Pan admits there are concerns about how mobile music services will work in China due to piracy issues. In addition, the lack of 3G and WLAN networks in public areas as well as the steep data traffic tariffs could also kill the idea. On the current 2G networks in China, it takes tons of time to download an individual track, not to mentioned a whole album. Some synchronization with PC could be a neat idea.

Anyway, Nokia has all four major record companies (EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner) as well as many independent labels on board for their “Comes With Music” scheme. The question is will they accept some kind of compromises to push the service to potentially lucrative Chinese market. We’ll have to wait and see…

Source: Into Mobile