British mobile music company Omnifone launched its mobile phone-based music subscription service MusicStation, going live in Sweden. It would also hit the other European markets in the coming weeks. This initiation is a part of the British company's strategy to occupy a major portion of the market share, before Apple Inc launches its iPhone in European market and elsewhere.

Omnifone Chief Executive Rob Lewis told media said “They will be in stores on a wide variety of handsets Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung giving European consumers the ability to access their music from anywhere. We've got to market first and ahead of the iPhone by many, many months.''

Scandinavian telecom provider Telenor flagged off the service with a weekly subscription price of 25 kronor (euro2.67; US$3.55). Cell phones pre-loaded with the software are being released in stores there Thursday. Johan Lindgren, Telenor's chief executive officer said “Telenor has always focused on delivering cutting edge services to its subscribers and with MusicStation we can deliver a truly next-generation music experience, giving our consumers the freedom to download an unlimited amount of music, wherever they are, for a small weekly fee.''

The service allows the users search, download and play music on their mobiles and synch it with their PC, thereby creating playlists that can be shared with other MusicStation users. This iPhone is due to hit the European markets in autumn and U.S. in June.
MusicStation enables the users to download brand new songs from several major music labels at a weekly cost of euro2.99 ($3.97), including the cost of sending the music to the handset.

Omnifone brings in this service through its association and partnerships with providers of MusicStation to Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa Rob Lewis said that the first roll-out is in Sweden, which would then be followed in Britain, France, Germany and several other parts of Europe. He also said that a similar launch would take place in Asia in about 2 months. We're taking an old-style approach and announcing the rollout the day it's available to the consumer in the store,'' he said. ``Every time it goes live, it will be available in store.

He further said that MusicStation had also signed international licensing deals with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI Music and Warner Music International, to provide their international and local digital music catalogs to MusicStation users.

Rob Wells, senior vice president, digital, at Universal Music Group said it’s hard to imagine a more compelling music experience on mobile than MusicStation. It works on almost any phone, giving consumers the freedom to choose whatever device they want. It allows downloads wherever those consumers are, providing the freedom to access music whenever they want. And it gives users unlimited access to our and other labels catalogues, all for a fixed weekly fee that includes data.''

Songs downloaded through MusicStation, along with users' playlists, are stored centrally, meaning that if a mobile phone is lost or stolen, the content is not and can be downloaded to a new phone, Lewis said. The company is initially expecting a high demand for the service, and said that it is targeting 100 million subscribers by June 2008.

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