RESTON, Va.—Sprint Nextel Corp. touted the success of its Sprint Music Store, announcing that customers had downloaded one million full-length songs through the service.
Sprint Nextel said it reached the milestone less than four months after the service launched. With a per-song cost of $2.50, the service may have generated as much as $2.5 million. However, some of the downloads may have been for promotional purposes, and therefore did not generate revenues
Interestingly, some analysts had predicted the $2.50-per-song price would discourage customers who are accustomed to $1 music downloads from services such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes store. The $2.50 price tag gets customers two copies of a song—one for their phone and one for their computer, which can be burned to a CD using Windows Media Player.
Sprint Nextel officials cited fast download speeds and an easy-to-use storefront for the service’s success. The carrier was the first U.S. operator to offer full-length music downloads via cellular phones, but has since been joined by Verizon Wireless.
