Nokia’s U.S. sale of the touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic device for North America was short-lived, but the company is still hopeful it will find a U.S. carrier partner for its Comes With Music service this year.
The 5800, which went on sale Friday, was pulled after reports of poor performance. “We have learned that some Nokia 5800 XpressMusic devices are having issues with 3G performance,” the company said in a statement. “This is a very isolated problem concerning only the North American market and is not specific to any other region or country. We are currently investigating the matter further to find a quick remedy to the situation.”
A Nokia spokesman said the company is still selling the global variant of the device in the United States, so presumably consumers who want to take the device overseas can try it out. The global variant works on GSM/W-CDMA at 900/2100 MHz.
Nokia advised existing customers of the 5800 XpressMusic who experience 3G signal issues to contact Nokia Customer Care. Many observers are calling the 5800 Nokia’s answer to the iPhone, although Nokia representatives aren’t outwardly positioning it that way.
Nokia launched the U.S. version of the 5800 without a carrier and through Nokia flagship stores in New York and Chicago. Meanwhile, the company is still hopeful it will land a deal with a North American carrier for its Comes With Music service.
Comes With Music involves buying a Nokia device, registering and downloading unlimited tracks for free; no billing integration is necessary with a carrier, so it would be possible to launch the service without U.S. carrier support. However, “we will do our utmost to launch with partners,” Trevor Madigan, global head of sales for Nokia Music’s operator channel, said yesterday. That’s how it’s been done in most markets, he added.
The United States represents the largest music market and “we think the simplicity of the offering will resonate with North American customers,” he said.
Nokia launched Comes With Music in the United Kingdom last year and launched it in Singapore on Friday. Australia is on tap for launch later this month.
The Singapore launch includes several devices that span the range from the more affordable to premium Nseries devices. The Singapore version of the Nokia 5800 went on sale on Saturday.
Madigan declined to say how Nokia plans to make money from the Comes With Music service as consumers are given free access to tracks for a year but said it follows years of complex negotiations and business modeling with Nokia and its partners.
Down the line, the idea is for recommendations to come into play, so members of a social network will see what their friends are downloading and can try it without experiencing buyer’s remorse. That’s in sync with the Ovi store offering that Nokia executives discussed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February.
Nokia Music Stores are available in about 15 countries. The main difference between Comes With Music and the Nokia Music Store is price. The Music Store has pricing next to songs/tracks; Comes With Music has no prices assigned.