Unlimited music service for PCs set to take sizeable bite out of Apple's market share

Chiswick based Omnifone, has joined forces with Hewlett Packard to take on music giant iTunes.

Based in the former Island Records building on British Grove, Omnifone is set to distribute their unlimited music service, MusicStation Desktop, across Europe by preloading it onto certain HP models.

Musicstation will provide unlimited access to millions of tracks from four major music labels and leading independent labels by enabling users of new HP PCs to legitimately download, play and share millions of tracks on their computer for a monthly subscription of £8.99.

iTunes currently dominates the digital music market taking the majority of the estimated US$4.2bn in 2009, however this new partnership could see iTunes’s share reduced.

"Omnifone is proud to partner with HP to deliver MusicStation to consumers on millions of PCs in 10 countries across Europe," said Rob Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of Omnifone.

"We look forward to extending our partnership onto even more PCs and territories, to ensure consumers have the ability to gain legitimate access to the world’s music on every HP PC they purchase," continued Lewis.

MusicStation is fully licensed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music International.

"Universal is working closely with PC manufacturers to support the introduction of legitimate music access across mainstream connected consumer electronics," said Universal Music Group's Rob Wells.

Michael Paull, Executive Vice President at Sony Music Entertainment added, "Consumers are asking for innovative digital music services that blend both access and ownership, and come pre-bundled with devices. We are pleased to be supporting Omnifone’s partnership with HP to meet that demand and extend the reach of the MusicStation platform to mass-market audiences."

January 27, 2010