Ericsson, Napster in mobile music deal for Swisscom

Ericsson and Napster announced an agreement with Swisscom Mobile, the largest Swiss mobile operator, to become the company’s exclusive mobile music service provider with Napster Mobile. The service will give Swisscom Mobile subscribers access to the easy-to-use Napster-branded mobile music service and its unparalleled music selection.

The Napster Mobile service, co-developed by Napster and Ericsson, contains more than 3 mln tracks. It leverages Napster’s vast catalogue of full-length songs and artist images, and Ericsson’s mobile platform and personalization content. Ericsson develops, integrates, hosts and manages round-the-clock operations for the service, while Napster contributes expert content programming, including “featured artists” and “top tracks of the day.” Swisscom will launch the service with a major ad campaign starting this week.

Napster Mobile enables Swisscom Mobile subscribers to search, browse, preview, purchase and subscribe to music content from virtually all record labels via their WAP or Java-enabled handsets. The service also includes such features as dual delivery, which ensures that once content is purchased on the mobile phone, a copy is sent to the customer’s PC as well. Napster Mobile also comes with a recommendation engine that introduces consumers to new music that matches their taste, thus making it easy to navigate through the huge content selection.

With a market share of 64%, Swisscom Mobile is the market leader in Switzerland. In fiscal year 2006, Swisscom Mobile generated net revenue of CHF 4,022 bln and now has more than 4.6 million Natel subscribers. Swisscom Mobile is a public limited company and operates a nationwide GSM network (900/1800 MHz), which was enhanced with EDGE in spring of 2005. With HSDPA, Swisscom Mobile is the first network carrier in Switzerland to roll out a turbo network. Launched in February of 2006, it is already about five times faster than a UMTS network. Already today, Swisscom Mobile provides coverage of around 90% of the populated area of Switzerland through its UMTS network as well as wireless LAN-Internet access through more than 1000 hotspots.