Mobile phone music service gears up for October launch in Britain

Omnifone, the company behind the mobile phone music service Music Station, is set to launch in the UK this October, months ahead of Apple's much-anticipated launch of the iPhone in the country.

Omnifone launched Music Station in Sweden last week. Unlike Apple's fledgling mobile phone, Music Station can be loaded on to most current handsets, meaning consumers don't have to shell out hundreds of pounds to buy the expensive iPhone, the company argues.

Rob Lewis, chief executive of Omnifone, expects that 100 million handsets will be sold with Music Station preloaded on to them by June 2008, with numbers potentially higher as a result of people downloading the service on to existing handsets.

The service costs £1.99 a week, for which customers get unlimited full-track music downloads from a database of 1.2 million songs. Omnifone said that it would offer customers a one-week free trial when buying a new phone to stimulate usage and awareness of Music Station. He added that in trials, 93 per cent of users explored the service.

Omnifone has entered talks with Carphone Warehouse, Europe's largest mobile phone retailer, about preloading Music Station on to new handsets. A deal would give the digital music platform a massive leg-up into European markets before the iPhone hits the shelves. The iPhone launches this month in the US, but has yet to reveal when it plans to launch in the UK.

Mr Lewis said he does not expect Apple to launch the iPhone in the UK before Christmas. He said that, despite iPhone being "the most talked-about handset of all time," Music Station would appeal to network operators who are reluctant to tie themselves to any single device. Omnifone has signed up 30 network operators across Europe to launch Music Station.

Paul Goode, a senior analyst at M:Metrics, thinks that there is room for both services to thrive in the UK. "I suspect that Omniphone would rather see Apple enter the market sooner rather than later, since the iPhone will be a high-end device tied to iTunes, outside the reach of the majority of subscribers, while Omnifone is promoting a subscription service to reach the mass market.

"There is certainly room for both approaches. The iPhone's arrival in the market will bring welcome promotion money and Apple's market flair to the mobile music sector as a whole, raising awareness of what is possible. In the meantime, the existing handset manufacturers are certainly not waiting around," he said.