Free iTunes on iPhone: to be or not to be?
Posted by dennis on March 20th, 2008 at 07:52am Comments
Yesterday The Financial Times reported that a group of big music industry labels approached Apple, whose iTunes music downloads store is responsible for over 70% of all music sold online, with a rather innovative offer.
According to the report, Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI, are interested in a similar deal like the one that they get from Nokia’s “With Music” program. Apparently, they’re interested in receiving a part of the revenue that Apple gets from sales of iPods and iPhones (sort of like Apple gets a part of iPhone carrier’ revenues).
In return, they’re allegedly willing to provide unlimited music subscriptions to Apple’s customers — that means you, iPhone owners to be (since most likely the price of the device with free music subscription would cost more than the regular price — in Nokia’s “With Music” case, free-music-enabled phones cost $80 more).
But BusinessWeek reports today, quoting an insider source, that the idea has been “kicked around” for approximately a year with “no meaningful discussions” taking place. Likewise, other insiders in the music industry dismissed the idea, while Apple declined to comment.
One of the potential reasons for Apple not wanting to get along with this program that BusinessWeek is bringing up, is the fact that iTunes is very successful as it is, and requires no revamps to its own business model (although the case might be very different when it comes to the business model of the music industry itself). Another potential reason is that despite the fact that iTunes sold over 4 billion songs, it has also sold a total of 142 million iPods and 4 million iPhones — which would mean that the average iPod/iPhone owner has bought fewer than 28 iTunes tracks.
But still, not all is lost, according to Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. “There may be millions of people who would never buy into the iPod-iTunes ecosystem who’d be willing to pay $7 to $10 a month for all the music they can get. If anyone can explain the benefits of a plan like this, it’s Apple,” he says.
Related posts:
- Apple now offers iTunes music downloads over iPhone’s 3G network
- Free WiFi iTunes downloads for iPhone owners in Starbucks - $200 free WiFi program bounty from iPhone World
- Apple might be “Ok” with unlocked iPhones
- Apple lowers iPhone sales predictions for 2008?
- Apple released iTunes 7.7: iPhone 3G ready!
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