Vodafone has announced that nearly 450,000 customers have signed up to its music subscription services in Europe since it inked DRM-free deals with all four major labels in 2009.
That’s the largest number of paying music subscribers in Europe, the operator claimed. Over 2 million DRM-free tracks are currently available, set to grow to 6 million this year.
In December, over 100,000 customers signed up to one of a range of music services offered across the eight largest Vodafone markets in Europe.
Growth in customer subscription numbers is being driven both by the monthly 10-track MP3 bundles as well as from ‘all you can eat’ unlimited access subscription services.
All four major labels have hailed the news, with UMG’s Francis Keeling saying the operator is “demonstrating leadership” in the music subscriptions field, while WMG’s Eric Daugan says that the figures “demonstrate the opportunities created when mobile companies and music labels are aligned in offering easy, instant access to content, in ways that cater for a variety of fan behaviour”.
January 27th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
The initial figures that Vodafone have released look promising however it will have to be seen if anyone else can produce a more successful and sustainable business model.
This article from The Music Void is interesting http://bit.ly/cm55zG