By: Andrew Sherrard, Senior Vice President, Marketing, T-Mobile USA
Today, T-Mobile joined Google at a press conference in Los Angeles to launch Google Music, a new platform where you can upload your personal music collections for free, purchase songs from your favorite artists, and stream all your music to your devices and the Web. Google Music represents an exciting leap forward that will change the way our customers discover, purchase and share music.
Smarter devices, a faster 4G network, and affordable access to amazing new experiences are fueling incredible data usage on our network – including a significant amount of audio streaming. A quick poll of T-Mobile fans in October confirmed that many of them are already rocking out on their smartphones. More than half of the T-Mobile customers who responded said they use their smartphone to play music, and more than a third who do, do so all the time or at least once a day.
We’ve also seen social media become nearly inseparable from mobile as more customers use their phones to share content – not just consume it. So, we know music is going mobile, but so far there hasn’t been a great sharing experience of the music you like with the friends you love. Also, while about 20 percent of mobile subscribers industry-wide listen to music on their phones (according to comScore), dedicated media players, not smartphones, continue to be the dominant form factor.
That’s where Google Music comes in. We believe Google Music will completely change the experience – allowing customers to not only discover and buy music in a new way, but also share their favorite tracks with friends on Google+. Google Music will make sharing songs easy, turning music lovers into music promoters. We are quickly moving from the age of streaming music to the age of streaming and sharing music over our 4G network. Thanks to new, connected experiences like Google Music, we believe wirelessly connected devices like smartphones and tablets, will continue gaining ground as the preferred music players.
To celebrate the launch of Google Music, we are excited to offer millions of T-Mobile customers using smartphones and tablets running on Android 2.2 and above free Google Music content from featured artists. Today, T-Mobile customers can download brand new tracks from Drake and Maroon 5. Each week through the end of the year, T-Mobile will introduce new free tracks – just go to the Android Market Music Store and look for the T-Mobile Free Tracks section to find them.
Only T-Mobile customers can access these free exclusive tracks through Google Music on the Android Market™, and that free content for T-Mobile customers will always be shareable via Google+. Also, T-Mobile customers will soon be able to add Google Music purchases on Android Market to their T-Mobile bill.
With our fastest smartphones running on America’s Largest 4G Network, we know our Android customers will have a great experience using Google Music.
