Vodafone Extends Mobile Music Catalogue to 500,000 Music Tracks

Although “one millionnnn dollars…” (apologies to Dr. Evil) doesn’t seem a whole lot these days when we talk about big corporate companies such as Vodafone, one million full music tracks downloaded onto cell phones is a big deal. Vodafone announced today that they’ve extended their mobile music catalogue to 500,000 music tracks and that one million full music tracks have been downloaded since the launch of full music downloads across a full range of new 3G handsets in November 2004.

The full Vodafone catalogue of 500,000 full music tracks will be available to Vodafone live! customers with 3G handsets in eight countries, beginning in Germany, with Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK following in the next few months.

With the significant increase in catalogue size, the company is also extending its search engine capabilities on the service to help customers find the tracks they want, in the way they want.

“The initial response to the full track music service has been very encouraging and following customer research we have upgraded the experience further”, said Guy Laurence, Consumer Marketing Director, Vodafone Group. “We believe the extended catalogue is the largest offered by any mobile operator globally and we are currently developing more 3G handsets compatible with the service.”

Thousands of full track music downloads from global artists have been secured through Vodafone’s existing deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music as well as new agreements for music from the catalogues of EMI and various local artists. Of the one million full music tracks downloaded, three of the most popular artists were: Maroon 5, “She Will Be Loved”, Jennifer Lopez “Get Right” and Laura Pausini, “Resta in Ascolto”.