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From Vinyl To CD To Phone Memory Card

21st October , 2004

Europe : EMI Music has agreed a deal with The Carphone Warehouse which will make Robbie Williams the first artist ever to release an entire album plus video content on a Memory Card - a tiny stamp sized device that slots straight into a mobile phone to deliver music on the move. Recognising the potential for this new trend is EMI Music UK and the UK’s largest independent mobile communications retailer, The Carphone Warehouse; which will be selling the cards exclusively across its 600 UK stores from next month. The sound quality will be comparable to that of a CD.

Robbie’s record company, EMI, and The Carphone Warehouse believe the new format marks the start of another era in digital music – one that will make it more tangible and accessible, especially to people without internet access.

The memory card market has exploded since camera phones took off last year. They are revolutionising the way people use audio, video, communications, and information devices and appliances. All of the latest mobile handsets are now designed for memory cards to be slotted into the back. Revenue for retail sales of memory cards next year is estimated at £100 million.

Danny Van Emden, Digital Media Director at EMI Music, comments, “The UK is in love with the mobile and it’s the one device that we know our artists’ fans have with them at all times – so the memory card is simply the next logical chapter in the affair. The format looks and sounds great and offers the same visuals as the physical CD, but in a completely new, neat pocket-sized package.”

The Robbie Williams memory card is the pioneering product in The Carphone Warehouse’s new mobile entertainment brand, playmobile®, which will also launch next month. Set to capitalise on the current ringtone phenomenon and the forthcoming 3G boom, playmobile® will bring quality value for money content to customers for the first time. It will focus on real brands, real artists, and real music and will extend to ringtones, games, wallpaper, video clips and loaded memory cards.

The Carphone Warehouse’s Director of Group Business Development Kevin Gillan explained: “2004 has undeniably seen a massive, and very mainstream, shift towards digital music. We see pre-loaded music memory cards as the next step and part of a general consumer hunger for more mobile content. playmobile ® will go beyond this and provide our customers with a quality experience at real value for money.

The Carphone Warehouse is already in talks with EMI to deliver more pre-loaded memory cards this Christmas.

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