Sales of Nokia’s Comes with Music service are estimated to total around 23,000 in the UK, where it launched five months ago. The results are fairly disappointing given that the service, which bundles a year of unlimited music downloads with the purchase of a mobile phone, is fairly innovative. However, it hasn’t helped that Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has made some mistakes along the way, especially in the UK. In an interview with the Telegraph, Nokia Music VP Rob Taylor (pictured, right) outlined three main lessons learned in that market:
1. Don’t underestimate the importance of the device: Taylor told the Telegraph that “the right device is just as important as what we’re offering.” When they launched in the UK, they started off by selling two devices “that were slightly out of date,” he said. “That’s not really something that helped us in the UK at the time. But we learned from that, and subsequent launches in other countries with the [touch-screen] Nokia 5800 — the hero device — are doing very, very well.”
2. The more retail partners, the better: Taylor also said that the company needed more retail partners. In the UK, the Comes With Music phones are being sold only by Carphone Warehouse.
3. Users have a high level of engagement: Taylor said British subscribers to the service are ‘more engaged’ than the average phone user. “Comes with Music users are downloading around 200 to 300 tracks in their first month.” But while 90 percent of the company’s usual music sales come from new songs, Comes with Music is the opposite — about 90 percent of those downloads are from the back catalog.
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