Orange to sell Nokia Come With Music in UK

Orange has agreed to sell Nokia's Comes With Music package, an unlimited music download service that has failed to take off since launching in October. Orange will offer the service bundled with Nokia’s first touch-screen phone, the 5800, with prices starting at GBP24.77 (USD37.50) a month on a two-year contract. Though the 5800 is available on other networks, Orange will be the only operator to offer it with Comes With Music.

Nokia is hoping that the deal will breathe life into Comes With Music, which has failed to achieve the kind of sales figures Nokia had hoped. Last month, Music Ally claimed that the Nokia had sold just 23,000 Comes With Music handsets. Talking to the BBC, Music Ally analyst Paul Brindley said: "If anything I was rather kind in not saying it was a complete catastrophe.?

Nokia has refused to confirm the sales estimates. However, Nokia Music VP Rob Taylor has admitted that it launched the service in the UK on phones that were ?slightly out of date?. Carphone Warehouse has slashed the price of the older 5310 handset from GBP127 (USD178) to just GBP82 (USD115). The deal was for a pay-as-you-go Comes With Music handset, meaning that for a one-off fee customers would get to use the music service for a year.

Commenting on the price cut, CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore told StrategyEye: ?If users still don't warm to the idea then clearly the overall service proposition needs to be addressed, because something that represents tremendous value is not being understood by consumers."

Nokia has cause for optimism about the launch of Comes With Music on the 5800, which is a newer, more desirable handset than the 5310. In addition, Nokia is reporting strong sales of the 5800 Comes With Music package in other markets, for instance Singapore. However, there is a risk that Comes With Music will still fail. One reason is that the tracks Nokia offers through the system come with digital rights management (DRM). Another is the fact that, though Come With Music offers tracks from all the major labels, its catalogue is incomplete and lacks many tracks that consumers want.