Last fall Apple (AAPL, Financial) gave the consumers something fantastic, something that attracted as many as 7 million unique listeners on the launch weekend only – the iTunes Radio. And now guess who has a similar service to offer – the Korean phone maker Samsung (SSNLF, Financial). I’m not even surprised anymore by this move since this isn’t the first time that Samsung has pulled off something like this, and I’m sure this will not be the last.
The Galaxy maker has launched a radio service which it calls “Milk Music” and its available free of cost to the end users and is free of ads as well, unlike the iTunes Radio, probably the only thing that sets it apart. As of now Milk Music is available to the US users only, but the company has grand plans to take it global pretty soon. Just the way iTunes radio is available exclusively to the Apple users, Milk Music will also be available exclusively to the Samsung Galaxy users. Other phone makers running on the Google (GOOG, Financial) Android platform will just have to depend on third party support or come out with their own internet-radio offering.
Thinking from a business point of view, it’s pretty natural for Samsung to venture into areas that have proven to be successful for its peers, and it seems that Samsung has done a fairly good job with it. Several analysts and industry experts are much impressed with the app as they feel it’s one of the most straight forward and easy to use music apps out there, that makes searching and listening to ones favorite music very, very easy. Boy oh boy, Samsung must be glad as I’m sure it couldn’t have asked for a better response from the audience.
Through this app Samsung will be offering more than 13 million songs. However, this is not something that Samsung has managed to compile on its own; rather the company is using the streaming services of Slacker Radio to pep up its Galaxy range of smartphones. The main benefit the company can expect from the app is that it will differentiate its products within the Android family. On that note, one can realize that Apple need not be much worried because of this latest update. Apple users will still be using iTunes Radio and it’s very unlikely that any user will migrate to a Samsung device just because of the Milk Music app.
Instead, other OEMs using Android need to start brain storming. With this app Samsung will be able to position its smartphones way better than those by others. Samsung phones will already have everything other OEMs will provide since all are on the same OS platform. Over and above the basic Android features, Samsung has been adding several innovative apps and its portfolio has now grown big and powerful enough to take on others. Samsung apps for the Galaxy Note series has received huge amount of appreciation and have set benchmarks for similar apps. May be Milk Music will also prove to be something similar.
