Sony Ericsson to enable music downloads

Sony Ericsson said on Tuesday that it would launch a new service on its mobile phones to allow full music downloading -- initially focusing on new and up-and-coming artists.

Mobile phone makers have been integrating music players into their handsets for some time, as part of a threat to Apple's iPod. Sony Ericsson has christened its new service M-Buzz and says that it will use an enhanced version of the company's PlayNow service.

"The first phones offering M-Buzz will be the W850 and W950 Walkman phones announced earlier this year and scheduled to ship in European, Asian and Latin American markets during the second half of 2006," Sony Ericsson said in a statement.

The company, half owned by Sony and half by Ericsson, said it would initially offer a limited number of artists each month, picked from Sony/ATV Music Publishing's roster.

"It will initially offer content for download to the phone, with new commercial aspects being developed later as additional features are incorporated in the M-Buzz space," the company added.

Strategy Analytics has said that close to 100 million phones sold this year will have a built-in music player and that number is expected to grow to almost 800 million units by 2010.

That compares with 8.11 million iPods sold in the April to June quarter, up 32 per cent from a year earlier but down from 8.5 million in the January to March quarter.

Handset makers see digital music as one of the key drivers for selling more expensive new phones, as they try to hold up their average selling prices despite surging demand for cheap phones in emerging markets.

Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, said in August that it was buying digital music distributor Loudeye for $60m (£32m).

Sony Ericsson's current PlayNow facility allows users to hear a clip of a ringtone and then purchase it.

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