UPDATED 13:11 EST / JANUARY 17 2011

NEWS

Nokia Pulls Ovi Music in 27 Countries

The world’s leading mobile producer, Nokia, has decided to end its bundling of free music downloads in 27 out of 33 markets. Nokia rolled out a subscription to Ovi Music Unlimited with many of its phones in 2008. The feature called “Comes with Music” allowed users to download an unlimited number of music tracks on their phones or PCs for the period of an year or so.

Nokia decided to yank the service from the market due to unpopularity caused by the Apple iTunes store and other music services. Although discontinued in major countries, Nokia will continue to sell phones with 12-month subscription for free music downloads in China, India, and Indonesia and with 6-month subscriptions in Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa. Those who have already purchased a phone before the end of 2010 can use it until the subscription runs out.

The service was first started in Britain as a test market, but lacked operator support and also could not attract customers. Analysts believe that this happened due to poor marketing and stiff competition prevailing in most countries. Comes with music could not compete with other popular services like Apple iTunes and Spotify. Other possible reasons behind the not-so-good performance include use of older supporting handsets and difficult product offering.

As apps become piece-meal distribution options for software, more mobile companies; both manufacturers, service providers have been turning to apps for supplemental revenue. Nokia has been having trouble recently keeping up with the iPhone and Android devices, and it’s restructuring its distribution and development of mobile software.

Lately, we have been hearing rumbles of other things about Nokia. It has been rumored that the company is soon to add Windows Phone 7 in their lineup that is believed to help them reach out other markets. Besides this phone launch, it has delayed to roll out its E7 Smartphone due to OS updates, but we can expect it to appear soon as Nokia can’t sit on their hands for long while their market share gets gobbled up by competitions.

Finally, the mobile manufacturer made some significant changes in its team size by cutting around 800 employees in its home market Finland. It appointed Jerri DeVard as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President. DeVard has over 25 years of experience in marketing domain and has worked with consumer brands, including Verizon, Citigroup, Revlon, Harrah’s Entertainment and the Pillsbury Company. Her appointment is expected to help Nokia spur their US sales.


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