Samsung Launches Mobile Music Service

Not content to leave the mobile music business in the hands of network operators, electronics giant Samsung has partnered with business-to-business media broker MusicNet to offer its own mobile music download and subscription service in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The service will operate using Samsung’s own Samsung Media Studio (SMS) application, and will ship on Samsung’s K3, K5, and T9 music handsets, while a software update will deliver the new version of SMS to previously-released PlaysForSure-compatible Samsung phones like the Z5.

Under the new service, users will be able to subscribe to Samsung’s music service for a flat monthly fee, downloading as much music as they like so long as their subscriptions remain active. Users will also be able to purchase and download individual tracks or albums. French and German users will have access to more than 2.6 million tracks, while users in the United Kingdom will be able to tap into more than 3 million tracks from four major labels as well as over 55,000 independent imprints.

“The introduction of the Samsung Media Studio is innovation in the digital age at its best,” said Mr. Seungsoo Park, VP of Sales and Marketing for Samsung’s Digital AV Division, in a release. “We have linked our internationally popular devices with a music subscription service and store adding a new dimension to how consumers interact with their devices. With the Samsung Media Studio the world is at your fingertips with millions of songs accessible anytime, anywhere.”

Monthly subscriptions will cost €14.99 in Germany and France, and £10.25 in the UK; individual track prices will start at €1.15, or 0.79p in the UK.

Samsung plans a major marketing blitz to highlight its new service, promoting both its new music handsets and the SMS service. There’s no word at this time if Samsung plans to offer SMS in the North American market, but given that major U.S. carriers are already trying to run up their revenue with mobile music, it’s unlikely they would want to offer phones with hard ties to a competing service.

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