Some incredible #:
---90% satisfaction rate with the pre-paid cell phone plan (which mean most users will not switch to a different phone company)
---400 songs downloads each month on average
----went from 50,000 subscribers to 100,000 subscribers in just 2 months (since the full nationwide lauch)
----more than MOG and Rdio combined and on par with Napster (Rhapsody is #1 with 750,000 paying subscribers)
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...05267222.story
In just six months, the Muve mobile music service from pre-paid wireless operator Cricket has done what year-old music services like MOG and Rdio have yet to do: reach 100,000 users. The company released the data today.
That's quite a feat, especially considering that the service has only been active in Cricket's full nationwide footprint for just over two months. The service went live in January in a handful of markets, rolling out slowly to cover all markets by early May. As Billboard previously noted, Muve's 100,000 subscribers are more than what both MOG and Rdio combined have generated, according to sources familiar with their progress.
"Not a lot of new services have launched that have reached that number of subscribers so quickly," says David Ring, Universal Music Group eLabs executive TV of business development and business affairs. "That's phenomenal."
What's more, Cricket also released usage data for the service that is raising eyebrows. On average, Muve customers download more than 400 songs per month, and in total have downloaded more than 100 million songs since the service launched. They also listen to music on their phones 2-3 hours a day, on average. In the month of June alone, the Muve service streamed more than 100 million songs. And internal surveys report a 90% customer satisfaction rate.
For starters, it's the first mobile operator to hard bundle a music service into its data plan.
The Muve plan is all-inclusive: bundling unlimited voice, texting, Web browsing and music downloads on a specific phone designed just for the service, all for a flat fee of $55 a month. (See Billboard's initial coverage for more details.)
Secondly, this isn't a streaming service. All songs are downloaded in full to the phone, where they stay.
http://www.macon.com/2011/07/07/1623...ing-ahead.html
The companies wouldn't say how much of the $55 was allocated to the music plan but Warner Music's Nash said the recording company's cut was the same as the amount it got from $10-a-month plans such as offered by Rhapsody, MOG and others.
Muve is exciting music companies partly because it is gaining a foothold among people without credit cards, who therefore weren't already buyers of songs on Apple Inc.'s iTunes digital music store.
"This is giving customers a pre-paid phone service and perhaps their first introduction to legitimate digital music consumption," said David Ring, Universal Music Group's executive vice president of business development.
Cricket says its customers are devouring music on the devices, downloading more than 400 songs per month and listening for two to three hours per day.
That's a good indication they'll pay their bills on time and decide not to drop their plans at the end of the month, which would help both Cricket and the music industry.
