NOKIA will be selling downloadable digital music in Singapore later this year.

At the company's Showcase Nokia 2008 event in Sydney this week, the Finnish mobile phone equipment maker said that it will make Nokia Music Store - Nokia's fledgling online and mobile music portal - available in Singapore, as well as in Australia before year-end.

The Nokia Music Store was launched in the UK last November with some two million tracks on sale, which subscribers can buy online via Web-connected PCs, or over-the-air via optimised Nokia phones like the Nokia N81, N81 8GB and N95 8GB.

At Nokia's UK portal, individual song tracks are priced at one euro, while entire music albums start from 10 euros.

A monthly subscription, for PC streaming, of 10 euros also applies. Subscribers there pay with either credit cards, PayPal or pre-paid vouchers.

Pricing for the Singapore service will only be available at commercial launch, a local Nokia spokesperson said.

When the service is rolled out, Singapore and Australian music lovers will also be able to buy music put out by a number of niche local music artistes and groups.

At its Sydney event, Nokia announced that it has agreed with several independent labels and music aggregators from Singapore and Australia to make their music available via the Nokia Music Store.

They include Singapore's Ocean Butterflies Music and Australia's MGM Distribution, Shock Entertainment and Obese Records.

Ocean Butterflies Music is a Singapore independent Mandarin popular music label that distributes its music in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

MGM distributes local and international music in Australia, while Obese Records is an independent Australian label known for its hip-hop music.

Nokia's latest overture to lure Asia's music lovers follows that of Sony Ericsson, which last week announced plans to launch its expanded online and mobile music service in Asia by year-end.

Called PlayNow arena, Sony Ericsson's five million track-strong digital music portal is scheduled to launch in 30 markets worldwide by year-end.

Both announcements are a further indication that the music industry business is rapidly being transformed from the CD-selling model to a digital music-streaming one.

This week at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, UK digital music company Omnifone announced a buffet-like music download service, called MusicStation Max, where subscribers can download an unlimited number of songs if they sign up to a yearly or longer contract.

In Barcelona, Omnifone announced that the Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label group, has agreed on a content deal.

The first MusicStation Max-compatible mobile phone will be made by South Korea's LG Electronics and the service will be available in Europe and Asia-Pacific in the first half of the year, The Associated Press reported.

Nokia last year announced a similar service called "Come with Music", which is due out in the second half of this year.

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