Sony Ericsson has fully-launched its PlayNow Arena content store in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, offering full-track downloads priced at SEK9 (£0.76) - roughly in-line with Apple's iTunes.

The company says it will roll the store out across other European territories before the end of 2008 and globally in 2009 in support of its Walkman and Cyber-shot handsets.

PlayNow Arena also offers games, ringtones, wallpapers and themes. Sony Ericsson has gone for a Flash-based carousel UI that isn't exactly the easiest to browse, however.

SE originally said it would launch the store in May, and had begun advertising the service online as early as February. A more limited version of PlayNow Arena has been up and running for some time (having replaced SE's original M-buzz site).

Competition is certainly heating up in the race by handset makers to offer their users access to content. Apple's AppStore (albeit minus music right now) is the current media darling, while Nokia has its multi-faceted Ovi product suite, encompassing music, games and navigation.