The Truth Bar

In its drive to improve its portability, online music service Spotify has announced its plans to enter into a partnership with 3 UK to put its service on their new range of phones.

Spotify allows people to access music from a voluminous collection, though they can access it only if their friends invite them to join the community. With the increasing popularity of the service among regular mobile broadband users, Spotify has decided to broaden the scope of its application by making the service available to mobile phone users through its deal with 3.

Spotify has a quite limited customer base as of now, though a deal like this can expand its reach to cover remote areas as well. Since 3 has been the first operator to accommodate Nokia’s ‘Comes with Music’ scheme, users will be more than willing to accept the new service as well. According to Jeremy Paterson, MD of music consultancy company Frukt, the service holds potential to become mainstream in a short time.

The first launch from 3 with Spotify features is going to be the HTC Hero, which will hit the markets around Christmas. Other models with Spotify will be launched successively. Though the tariffs have not been declared yet, it is expected that Spotify will begin by providing its advert-free ‘premium’ (paid) service to the new users.