Deutsche Telekom confirms exclusive deal for Apple Music

Deutsche Telekom became the latest operator to forge an exclusive national partnership with Apple for its music streaming service, confirming earlier reports that the German telco would launch a promotion for Apple Music this week.

In an announcement at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Friday, Deutsche Telekom said Apple Music will be available free to customers in Germany for six months. After the free trial, users will then have to pay €9.95 ($11.12) per month to continue using the service.

The move means that Telekom Deutschland -- the domestic subsidiary of the German telco -- has become the second operator in Europe and the third globally to announce a free trial of Apple Music services: EE unveiled a similar offer last week and Telstra has been promoting the streaming music service since last year.

The Apple Music promotion is already being marketed on the Telekom Deutschland web site. The operator added that the service complements its existing Spotify offer, whereby the rival streaming service is offered free for a month.

Like EE but unlike Telstra, Deutsche Telekom is not zero-rating Apple Music, meaning that use of the service will affect monthly mobile data allowances. Indeed, the German telco appears to be backing away from zero-rated offers as it scrapped its previous zero-rated Spotify offer with effect from Aug. 2.

Emma Mohr-McClune, service director, consumer global at Current Analysis, recently told FierceWireless:Europe that operators in Europe are not moving away from zero rating per se but are taking a more sophisticated approach, “with multi-level and usage-based parameters, particularly for video.”

She also noted that EE may have opted against zero-rating Apple Music because the offer is a market first in the UK. That could also apply to Deutsche Telekom as the operator is able to use the exclusivity of the deal in Germany as a unique selling point.

Meanwhile Deutsche Telekom also unveiled other new mobile service promotions at IFA, introducing an unlimited bolt-on plan called DayFlat unlimited. The offer allows existing users to buy an unlimited data allowance for one day at €4.95 for customers with MagentaMobil smartphone plans and €9.95 for customers with Data Comfort mobile broadband plans.

It also enhanced its converged offer with the launch of MagentaEINS 8.0. The fixed and mobile packages now include the “EntertainTV mobil” services at no extra cost.

Finally, the company said it now had more than 10 million LTE users in Germany and provided LTE coverage to 91.4 per cent of the population with speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

For more:
- see the Deutsche Telekom release

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