The world's top cellphone maker, Nokia, is ending its bundling of free music downloads with cellphones in 27 countries, where it has gained little traction since its 2008 launch. China, India and Indonesia along with Brazil, Turkey and South Africa are the only exceptions, though they will probably follow suit sooner or later.
Nokia unveiled the service in late 2008 in Britain -- seen as a test market for new mobile services in Europe -- but has lacked operator support and failed to attract many customers.
Reasons behind the lackluster performance include use of older supporting handsets for the product at its launch, digital rights management (DRM) software that tied downloaded music to the device and a difficult to understand product offering.
"The markets clearly want a DRM-free music service," said a spokesman for Nokia, adding the firm continues to offer DRM-free tracks through its music store in 38 countries.
DRM software limits sharing of songs between different devices.
Consumers with the free music bundle in the 27 countries where the sale of the service have stopped will continue to have access until their subscriptions run out.
Via : Reuters
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