Telenor in tune with music fans

News

Stuart O'Brien Jul 9 2007, 11:00am

Telenor now runs Norway’s largest music download service: it’s bigger than iTunes.

The operator launched a full-track mobile music store with Nordic content aggregator Aspiro and now has 200,000 regular users. There are 100,000 tracks available and the best sellers – such as Mika’s Grace Kelly – shift around 15,000.

Pretty good for a country with 4.5 million inhabitants. Telenor claims the stats mean the service is more popular than iTunes in Norway.

Now, Telenor is planning to accelerate its lead in digital music with service improvements including product bundles. It already offers differential pricing – 12kr for new releases and 7kr for back catalogue – and three-for-one offers.

Klaus Martin Sorland, Telenor’s head of music services, said: “We’ve built the music store into a huge success by focusing on local tastes and by making the shopping experience a good one with special offers and so on.”

This focus on content won Telenor a Meffy ‘best operator’ award at MEM 2007 last month. But the achievements don’t stop at music. The operator also has a football offering that comprises partnerships with every Norwegian Division One club, with links to WAP sites, news alerts and more.

It also offers a mobile version of the hugely popular social networking phenomenon Facebook.