Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) today announced a pan-European mobile music agreement with EMI Music. The agreement allows Ericsson to enable European mobile operators to distribute ringtunes and full-track downloads from EMI's catalogue in Europe, including tracks by Coldplay, Faith Evans, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, KT Tunstall, and Robbie Williams, and Bebe (Spain), Tiziano Ferro (Italy), Wir Sind Helden (Germany) and Raphael (France).
Around 12,000 ringtunes and 200,000 full-track downloads will be made available to consumers through Ericsson under the terms of the agreement. Ericsson's Personalized Music Portal is a white-label business-to-business solution, and is the most widely commercially deployed personalized mobile music service among operators today.
Ericsson's Personalized Music Portal is based on the Service Delivery Platform for media services (SDP Media), which enables operators to easily and quickly launch ringtunes and full-track download services at low cost. Content providers, including EMI, provide Ericsson with digital content, and Ericsson negotiates with operators to provide a full management service. This allows the content provider to concentrate on creating and marketing new content, while operators can focus on promoting the service and billing the consumer.
Doug Lucas, Vice President, digital development and distribution for EMI Music in Europe, says: "Music fans across Europe have consistently shown that they want to use their phone to listen to full tracks from their favorite artists, or to personalize their device with a ringtune. This agreement with Ericsson further increases our ability to provide millions of consumers with great music from EMI's catalogue wherever and whenever they require it."
Johan Bergendahl, Vice President Marketing, Ericsson, says: "The Ericsson Personalized Music Portal is already a great success and we expect that the demand for the service will increase even further with the great content and promotion opportunities that EMI and its remarkable roster of artists brings to this partnership."
Ericsson is shaping the future of Mobile and Broadband Internet communications through its continuous technology leadership. Providing innovative solutions in more than 140 countries, Ericsson is helping to create the most powerful communication companies in the world.
For further information, please contact:
Ericsson Media Relations
+46 8 719 6992, +46 8 681 2468
E-mail: press.relations@ericsson.com
About EMI
EMI is the world's largest independent music company, operating directly in 50 countries. Its EMI Music division represents more than 1000 artists spanning all musical tastes and genres. Its record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Televisa Music, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin. For more information, please visit www.emigroup.com/
About Ericsson's managed services offering
Ericsson has the telecom industry's most comprehensive managed-services offerings, ranging from designing, building, operating and managing day-to-day operations of a customer's network, to hosting service applications and enablers, as well as providing network coverage and capacity on demand. As the undisputed leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced more than 55 managed services contracts with operators worldwide since 2002. In all current managed-services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve more than 50 million subscribers worldwide.
