Comes With Music Experiences A Difficult Takeoff

Music business news & strategy source Music Ally put a post up on their blog yesterday with some juicy details they obtained about total worldwide subscriber uptake of Nokia's vaunted Comes With Music service. Apparently there were only 107k activated user accounts, across the 9 territories in which the service has launched, as of July.

When Music Ally confronted Nokia with the unspectacular numbers a spokesperson for the Finnish handset maker bragged about their rapid multi-territory rollout plans, acknowledged the inherent difficulties associated with a business model paradigm shift (true that) and then said, with regard to these specific stats, that "per our longstanding policy we do not comment on industry speculation or rumors." I guess the numbers are accurate.

This appears to be yet another case (like Ovi) where Nokia is trying to roll-out a content service globally, before it's fully baked. I would suggest that they should have tested this model a little bit longer in the UK (and maybe in one developing market) to better understand consumers' propensities to adopt it, and the ability of retailers to sell it, before pushing it out to all of their territories. Unfortunately this plane has already taken flight... and perhaps that stalled engine under the left wing will restart itself, and if not, perhaps Nokia's mechanics can fix it in the air... right?