Vodafone outsources mobile music

Vodafone has tapped mobile-services company Mia to provide music streaming, games and video content for Vodafone customers.

Vodafone has opted to completely outsource the mobile content service to Mia, which will provide 1.5 million music tracks and games to Vodafone customers, as well as the associated customer support. Mia will host and manage the content on the "Sphere" platform, and charges for the services will be passed through Vodafone's billing application programming interface onto a customer's bill.

Mia CEO Jon Mooney said that the company's focus is on providing a quick and reliable way to pay for content.

"With our Sphere platform, we give providers access to direct carrier billing, making transactions quicker and easier without the need to log in or use a credit card," he said.

Vodafone had not responded to requests for comment at the time of writing.

Mia has worked with Optus on its mobile ads server, and Telstra on its BigPond mobile music platform, as well as Virgin Mobile, the ABC, Motorola, Fairfax and Network Ten.

The deal comes as Telstra plans to launch a subscription music service — available to customers of all mobile carriers — in partnership with US music-streaming service MOG.

Optus has yet to announce any similar plans, but it is understood that the company is looking for a partner music service.

More broadly, music-streaming services are beginning to get a foothold in the Australian market, with Rdio launching earlier this year, and Spotify looking to launch soon. Music video-streaming service Vevo opened up its website to Australian visitors earlier this month.