Nokia Comes With Music Comes to Market at Last

Consumers in the U.K. will be the first to try Nokia's Comes With Music on the 5310 XpressMusic phone, Nokia announced on Tuesday.

The phone is expected to ship next month. The service, announced last December, packages mobile phones with a year of unlimited access to tracks in the Nokia Music store and the ability to keep all downloaded tracks even after the year is over, according to Nokia.

At first, Nokia will be working with Carphone Warehouse. The mobile phone retailer will have an exclusive prepay channel deal until the end of the year, which includes the all-important holiday shopping season. Pricing hasn't been announced.

It's no surprise that Nokia is launching Comes With Music with a retailer, and not a carrier, according to Carolina Milanesi , research director at Gartner. "I think this only represents a revenue potential for carriers if users download over the air, other than that there is no real incentive for them. Also if you are offering your own music offering this is in competition from what you already have," she said.

Comes With Music is a part of Nokia's larger software push.

"Differentiating on the hardware side is not always enough. With Comes With Music, Nokia is trying to add more value to its devices to help drive brand as well as a higher price tag on the devices themselves," Milanesi said.

More details about Comes With Music will be announced at an event in London on Oct. 2, according to Nokia.