Cingular Singles Out Apple, Has Yahoo! and Napster in Its Corner

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Cingular to Launch Cellphone Music Service [Wall Street Journal]

Summary: People familiar with Cingular's mobile music plans say the carrier jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth, will announce as early as tomorrow, it's launching of an industry-first service that offers subscription access to Napster, Yahoo! Music and eMusic, and also music transferring between PCs, the capability to rip from CDs, and play MP3 and WMA formats. Next year it plans to introduce a virtual music store, similar to how ringtones are purchased. Rivals Verizon Wireless and Spring Nextel already offer such a service, with the latter saying it sold over 8 million songs in the past 12 months at $2.50 each. The competition in music phones is intensifying as Sony Ericsson says it sold 15 million Walkman phones in the past 14 months. And Nokia is targeting sales of 80 million music phones this year -- to claim the number one spot. Apple seems to recognize the challenge coming from all fronts, and has responded by boosting the capacity of its iPods while lowering prices on some models. Apple's iTunes music store competes with the likes of Napster and Yahoo! Music.
Related links: Earnings conference call transcripts: AT&T Q3 '06, Bell South Q3 '06, Apple F4Q06 • AT&T Reports 74% Profit Surge • AT&T Beats Street; Xerox Profit Jumps • AT&T-BellSouth Merger Still Needs FCC Clearance • Citi: Buy AT&T and Sell Verizon • Nokia to Reclaim High-end Handset Throne • Can the iPod Wannabes Get it Right This Time? • iPods vs. Music-Phones: Apple Still Has a Huge Advantage • Size Matters at AT&T -- Looking Good Post-Acquisition
Potentially impacted stocks and ETFs: AT&T (T), BellSouth (BLS), Apple (AAPL), Ericsson (ERIC), Microsoft (MSFT), Motorola (MOT), Napster (NAPS), Nokia (NOK), Sony (SNE), Sprint Nextel (S), Verizon (VZ), Yahoo! (YHOO) • ETFs: Telecom HOLDRs (TTH), Vanguard Telecom Services ETF (VOX), First Trust Morningstar Div Leaders Idx (FDL)

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Comments

[Tom B]

Another failed business model-- who wants to deal with Cingular? Not just them-- ALL the cell providers are 100% clueless in terms of customer service.