• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

Warner signs two mobile content deals

Kate Holton
LONDON
Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:37pm EST
Musicians Chris Isaak (L) and Michael Buble look at a photo on the back of a digital camera as they arrive at the Warner Music Group Grammy after-party in Los Angeles February 11, 2007. Warner announced on Wednesday new deals with two leading mobile operators to deliver its mobile music content across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. REUTERS/Max Morse

LONDON (Reuters) - Warner Music Group announced on Wednesday new deals with two leading mobile operators to deliver its mobile music content across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Technology

The New York-based group announced content deals with Egypt's Orascom Telecom to deliver its catalog of mobile products such as ringtones and full track downloads in countries including Algeria, Bangladesh, Italy, Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt.

Under the second deal, Warner will work with Norwegian telecom group Telenor to offer its content via nine of Telenor's 13 mobile operators in countries such as Norway, Sweden, Ukraine and Hungary.

Music companies are constantly looking to increase revenues from legal digital downloads and mobile streams to make up for the loss of revenues from declining CD sales.

Warner has been among the more aggressive of music companies to court new customers on the Internet and mobile phones, becoming the first music company to negotiate a deal with the controversial video sharing site YouTube, now owned by Internet search leader Google Inc..

The latest announcements from Warner, the world's fourth largest music company, follow previous mobile deals with groups in Japan, South Korea, Russia, China and Latin America.

A spokesman for the group said the deals would open Warner's content up to 60 million of Orascom's subscribers. As of the third quarter of 2006, Telenor's total mobile customer base from the 13 operators was 105 million.

"(Orascom's) scale, ambition and commitment to promoting legitimate, pan-regional mobile music services make them the ideal partner for us as we develop our presence in the Middle East and North Africa," Warner Chairman and CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr, said in a statement.

Alex Zubillaga, Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy at Warner, said the sheer scale and reach of Telenor's mobile network would take Warner's ability to deliver mobile content to a "whole new level".

"This agreement highlights our commitment to responding to regional variations in the ways consumers access music and to developing digital music opportunities around the world," he said.
Technology


More from Reuters

A Greenpeace activist dressed as one of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" rides outside the parliament building during a brief protest in Copenhagen December 13, 2009. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

The face of climate protest

Protesters around the globe called for an end to global warming as climate talks in Copenhagen entered their sixth day.  Video 

    Climate conference
    In this photo reviewed by the U.S. Military, a guard leans on a fencepost as a Guantanamo detainee (L) jogs inside the exercise yard at Camp 5 detention center, at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, January 21, 2009. REUTERS/Brennan Linsley/Pool

    Life after Guantanamo

    Critics are worried that Gitmo prisoners once dubbed "enemy combatants" will be using prisons as pulpits for anti-American rhetoric once they're moved to U.S. soil.  Full Article 

    U.S.
    Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Robert Stevens answers a question during the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington December 14, 2009. REUTERS/Molly Riley

    Lockheed eyes deals

    The future demands of cybersecurity make that sector one of many the aerospace giant sees as an acquisition target in the coming year.  Full Article 

    Aerospace and Defense Summit