Mobile music company Omnifone has announced the first rollout of its unlimited music downloads service, MusicStation, in the APAC region, with Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited’s mobile operation 3 Hong Kong. 3 Hong Kong’s mobile users will get unlimited access to a vast catalogue of music from major record labels, like Universal Music Group, Sony BMG ( News - Alert) Music Entertainment, EMI Music, and Warner Music Group, as well as leading independents.
The service is available on 14 3/3.5G Nokia and Sony Ericsson ( News - Alert) music mobiles. 3 Hong Kong’s 3G portal will provide either preinstalled or alternatively available for Over the Air (OTA) download. Full track downloads will take just a few seconds, and just few minutes for an entire album.
Sandy Monteiro, senior vice president (ASEAN), Universal Music Group ( News - Alert) International, said, “Asia-Pacific is a huge market for the music industry, but piracy issues have stifled the growth of legal music sales in recent times. The widespread acceptance of the mobile phone as a device to experience music in the region is providing a great opportunity for the industry to get a better sense of the true value of music.”
For just HK$12 per week, users will get to download, play, and share whatever music they want wherever they are, directly on their handsets. The downloading of music is risk-free and legitimate. Other features provided in this service include live charts, a personalized music
news service, and a music-based social network community capability that enables users to make friends, build, and share playlists and music recommendations with other 3 MusicStation users.
The service includes a full Traditional Chinese interface in addition to an English language interface. The implementation of wide handset reach double-byte character support will also assist other proposed rollouts in Asia-Pacific. The 3 MusicStation service will also be supported by a local Omnifone editorial team providing full editorial support for localized music news and content, a key characteristic of every MusicStation rollout.
Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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