Asia-Pacific tunes into unlimited music downloads with MusicStation launch in Hong Kong
- Award-winning MusicStation service arrives in Asia-Pacific, one of the world's fastest growing digital music markets
- 3 MusicStation offers subscribers unlimited music direct to 3 Hong Kong mobiles for just HK$12 per week* (less than US$1.55 / €1.20)
- Innovative price point established by Omnifone to encourage legal music consumption across the region
- More local and international tracks available on 3 MusicStation at launch than any other digital music service in Hong Kong
- MusicStation handsets arrive in 3 Hong Kong stores from tomorrow
22 October 2007, Harbour Plaza Hotel, Hong Kong – Mobile music company Omnifone, today announces the first rollout of its award-winning unlimited music downloads service, MusicStation, in Asia-Pacific with Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited's mobile operation 3 Hong Kong.
3 MusicStation will provide 3 Hong Kong's mobile users unlimited access, when subscribed, to a vast catalogue of music from all the major record labels; Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music Group, as well as leading independents, on a range of new and existing handsets at an innovative price point of just HK$12 per week* (including data charges).
"Hong Kong is the gateway to Asia-Pacific and so strategically important for Omnifone's global ambitions," said Rob Lewis, CEO of Omnifone. "Partnering with 3 Hong Kong, one of the most innovative mobile network operators in the world, enables us to make the first step in bringing MusicStation to what will be the world's most important digital music market."
3 MusicStation gives users the freedom to download, play and share whatever music they want wherever they are, directly on their handset. Customers can discover and download any new music risk-free at any time, enabling legitimate and effective music discovery. 3 MusicStation also features live charts, a personalised music news service and a music based social network community capability which enables users to make friends, build and share playlists and music recommendations with other 3 MusicStation users.
3 Hong Kong Chief Operating Officer Amy Lung, said; "At 3 we pride ourselves on delivering an innovative suite of cutting edge services to our subscribers. In launching 3 MusicStation, we are the first operator in Asia-Pacific to rollout an All You Can Eat (AYCE) music subscription service that gives consumers the freedom to access as much music as they want, at any time, anywhere in Hong Kong, on a wide range of new and existing music mobiles over the 3 network."
3 MusicStation is available on 14** new or existing 3/3.5G Nokia and Sony Ericsson music mobiles, either preinstalled or alternatively available for Over The Air (OTA) download from 3 Hong Kong's 3G portal. 3.5G (High Speed Data Packet Access - HSDPA) handsets including the Nokia 6120, N95 and Sony Ericsson W910i will deliver full track downloads over the mobile network in just a few seconds and an entire album can be downloaded in under a minute.
Further 3 MusicStation handsets from a range of manufacturers will be added in the run up to Christmas.
Omnifone sets compelling Asia-Pacific pricing to encourage legal music consumption
Omnifone has set special pricing for MusicStation across Asia-Pacific countries which will encourage legal music consumption across the region. 3 MusicStation users will pay just HK$12 per week* for unlimited access to the largest catalogue of local and international music available in Hong Kong.
Sandy Monteiro, Senior Vice President (ASEAN), Vice President - Digital (South East Asia excluding China), Universal Music Group 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.
The arrival of 3 MusicStation is timely; it's a compelling music experience on mobile with competitive pricing, easy to use, widespread access to exciting content, and is available to virtually all music mobile handsets. As the leading player in the market, Universal Music will benefit greatly from the launch of 3 MusicStation in Hong Kong and its rollout across the region, as will music in general."
JF Cecillon, Chairman & CEO, EMI Music International said, "Subscription based mobile music services are more established in Asia-Pacific than in many other parts of the world. The launch of 3 MusicStation in Hong Kong is a great opportunity for EMI and its artists to be a part of this burgeoning market and to help drive the development of legal music consumption."
Lachie Rutherford, President, Warner Music Asia-Pacific, said, "In order to meet the challenges posed by illegal copying of music in this region, we need to develop attractive legitimate alternatives. 3 MusicStation provides Warner Music Asia-Pacific with a great way to tap into this market via a convenient, easy-to-use and well-priced service that provides consumers with a compelling mobile music experience."
Ruuben van den Heuvel, Senior Vice President, Digital and New Business Development, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Asia said, "We are delighted that 3's customers can now enjoy the rich music offering that MusicStation enables. Millions of music fans in Hong Kong being connected to music 24/7 provides the best way for Sony BMG to continue to enrich the lives of many through the incredible creativity of our artists."
Full Traditional Chinese implementation for 3 MusicStation
Confirming Omnifone's strategic focus on localisation, Omnifone confirms the 3 MusicStation service features 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 localised music news and content, a key characteristic of every MusicStation rollout.
The Asia-Pacific market
The launch of 3 MusicStation in Hong Kong is a great opportunity for EMI and its artists to be a part of this burgeoning market and to help drive the development of legal music consumption."
Lachie Rutherford, President, Warner Music Asia-Pacific, said, "In order to meet the challenges posed by illegal copying of music in this region, we need to develop attractive legitimate alternatives. 3 MusicStation provides Warner Music Asia-Pacific with a great way to tap into this market via a convenient, easy-to-use and well-priced service that provides consumers with a compelling mobile music experience."
Ruuben van den Heuvel, Senior Vice President, Digital and New Business Development, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Asia said, "We are delighted that 3's customers can now enjoy the rich music offering that MusicStation enables. Millions of music fans in Hong Kong being connected to music 24/7 provides the best way for Sony BMG to continue to enrich the lives of many through the incredible creativity of our artists."
Full Traditional Chinese implementation for 3 MusicStation
Confirming Omnifone's strategic focus on localisation, Omnifone confirms the 3 MusicStation service features 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 localised music news and content, a key characteristic of every MusicStation rollout.
The Asia-Pacific market
Asia-Pacific is the world's fastest growing digital music market, now accounting for 25% of global digital sales. Although PC and broadband penetration is fragmented across the region, Asia-Pacific has a vibrant mobile culture with many consumers purchasing between two and three new handsets every year. Asia-Pacific boasts the highest levels of 3G penetration in the world with 53% of mobile subscribers in Japan and 35% of mobile subscribers in South Korea currently using 3G handsets. (Source: IFPI Digital Music Report 2007).
Though low iPod penetration and the lack of any iTunes stores in Asia-Pacific (outside of Australia, Japan and New Zealand) means that many consumers chose to copy or side-load music rather than purchasing tracks legally, subscription based streaming and download services have proved popular throughout the region. There is a strong opportunity for mass market subscription based music services which can in turn promote the take-up of legal music consumption across the region.
Robin Bloor, international IT analyst with Bloor Research said, "Setting a very low weekly subscription fee for 3 MusicStation is a sensible move. It will be seen as an incentive for mobile users in Asia-Pacific, who rarely pay for music on PCs or MP3 players. The Asia-Pacific market is predicted to be the largest for digital music over the next few years. Launching with 3 Hong Kong allows Omnifone to leverage this developed part of Asia-Pacific where 3G penetration levels are high, to gain a strategic foothold in the region. MusicStation's subscription based model is likely to help 3 Hong Kong hold on to customers, reducing churn and incrementally increasing ARPU† from music. Other operators will surely follow as digital music becomes a clear differentiator. Asia-Pacific is not scheduled to get the iPhone any time soon - maybe not for years - so Omnifone is stealing a march on Apple's iTunes in an important market, where iTunes has no significant footprint."
Further MusicStation rollouts imminent
The 3 Hong Kong launch comes just weeks after Vodafone announced that it will roll out MusicStation in the UK in November. Further rollout announcements will be made imminently.
Omnifone is working with 27 other mobile network operator partners to rollout MusicStation across 40 European, Asia-Pacific and African countries including; Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
*Subscribers pay a small weekly fee of just HK$12 including data charges, directly through their existing 3 contracts. 3 MusicStation is available to download to new and existing mobiles from 3 Hong Kong's 3G portal. 3 MusicStation handsets will be available in 3 Hong Kong stores.
**See 3 MusicStation handset range below.
† Average revenue per user (ARPU)
Ends
Notes to editors
About 3 MusicStation
3 MusicStation will run on virtually all 3/3.5G music compatible mobiles. 3 MusicStation's user interface and functionality are virtually identical across all manufacturer handset models, providing the same intuitive user experience on every handset.
Built-in networked functions, including the ability to share playlists with other users, mean that 3 MusicStation delivers a truly compelling music experience on the mobile for the first time in Asia-Pacific. 3 MusicStation customers will be able to build a music-based social network, where they can create a profile and message their friends with track and playlist recommendations. 3 MusicStation uses 'collaborative filtering' and 'nearest neighbour technology' to identify and recommend new tracks, artists and playlists that users are likely to be interested in.
Downloaded 3 MusicStation tracks and user playlists are stored centrally so that if a 3 Hong Kong customer's mobile is stolen, lost or upgraded, the replacement handset will automatically restore the customer's music, playlists, friends and preferences the first time 3 MusicStation is switched on.
3 MusicStation automatically stores a customer's favourite tracks on the phone's internal or removable memory. Whilst some phones can store thousands of tracks, others store less than one hundred. 3 MusicStation maximises the capabilities of any mobile phone using unlimited downloads from the network to provide access to any of the catalogue at any time. 3 MusicStation's technology also ensures that the memory allocated on the phone is always used to store the customer's favourite and about-to-be-played music. This means that users can listen to their favourite tracks when in Flight Safe mode and have unlimited access to the full catalogue when connected to a 3G or 3.5G network.
About Omnifone
Award winning mobile music company Omnifone was founded in 2003 by leading technology entrepreneurs Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight. The founders, along with Chairman Jim Feeney, established Omnifone with the aim of bringing legal and affordable digital music to the mass market over the only digital medium that is ubiquitous globally; mobile handsets.
Omnifone's next generation music service MusicStation is a low cost All You Can Eat (AYCE) subscription-based mobile music service that is pre-installed on participating partner operator handsets and delivers the world's music to most mobile handsets for a small weekly fee. Omnifone uses its unique Device Adaptive Architecture to instantaneously port MusicStation to multiple operator handsets, reducing time to market and giving the highest possible handset reach of any mobile music service globally.
Omnifone has gained global support for MusicStation from the music and mobile industries winning the prestigious Music Service Award Meffy, at Mobile Entertainment Market (MEM) 2007 in Monte Carlo on 5 June 2007 and also the Red Herring 100 award. The company has an established network of 30 partner networks, reaching across 40 countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Omnifone's founders sold the successful internet software development company Cromwell Media for £850m in March 2000 and subsequently sold Silicon.com and associated European assets they founded, to major online publishers, including NASDAQ-listed CNET Networks. Omnifone has offices in London, Scotland, Sweden, Hong Kong and South Africa.
About 3 Hong Kong and Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited
Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited ("Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong"), a subsidiary of Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited*, is one of the leading mobile operators in Hong Kong with over 2 million subscribers. It provides 3G and 2G services under the "3" brand.
Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong has always been a pioneer in the evolution of mobile development, deploying multiple technologies in Hong Kong since 1985, including 1G analogue (AMPS/TACS), 2G digital (GSM/CDMA), 2.5G high speed data transmission (GPRS/IS95B) and 3G video mobile communication services (WCDMA). It was the first operator in Hong Kong to roll out a world-class 3G service, forming an integral part of Hutchison Whampoa Group's global 3G footprint. With the launch of 3G services in January 2004 under the "3" brand, Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong has firmly established its leadership position in the 3G market in Hong Kong, providing a rich portfolio of ground-breaking video mobile communication services, superb network quality and extensive automatic international roaming and data roaming coverage. For more information about "3", please visit the "3" website at www.three.com.hk.
*Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited is listed in New York and Hong Kong and is a subsidiary of the Hutchison Whampoa Group.
For further information please contact
Tim Hadley
PR director
Omnifone
Tel: +44 (0)7976 410001
thadley@omnifone.com
3 MusicStation handset range at launch
- Sony Ericsson W660i
- Sony Ericsson K530i
- Sony Ericsson W880i
- Sony Ericsson K810i
- Sony Ericsson Z610i
- Sony Ericsson K610i
- Sony Ericsson K800i
- Ericsson T650i
- Sony Ericsson W910i
- Sony Ericsson K770i
- Nokia N73
- Nokia 6120
- Nokia N95
- Nokia E65
