Thumbplay Music Launches on iPhone: Becomes First On-Demand Music Service on All 3 Major Smartphone Platforms in U.S.

NEW YORK, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Thumbplay®, the leading provider of mobile entertainment in the U.S., has launched Thumbplay® Music™ (www.thumbplaymusic.com) in the Apple App Store, becoming the first and only on-demand, subscription music service available across the three major platforms in the U.S. — iPhone®, Android™ and BlackBerry® smartphones.  This adds the Apple iPhone® and the iPod Touch® to the growing list of devices supported by Thumbplay Music (complete list below). Thumbplay Music is also available as a companion app on PCs/Macs®. 

With this announcement, Thumbplay Music is the most widely available cloud-based music service available in the U.S.  According to the NPD Group, as of the first quarter of 2010, RIM (BlackBerry), Google (Android) and Apple (iPhone) collectively address 85% of smartphone users in the U.S.*

Thumbplay Music has just under 9 million tracks under license from all major labels and more than 35,000 independent labels. Thumbplay Music is a next generation music service, built by experts in mobile content delivery to serve the rapidly growing market of U.S. smartphone users which is forecasted to grow to 160 million people by 2013.** 

Said Evan Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbplay, "For the first time, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry fans ALL have unlimited, on demand access to millions of songs.  We are certainly proud to be the first to deliver a service across all three platforms, but it's even more gratifying to have delivered a feature-rich, reliable service that customers in ever-increasing numbers are saying they love."

Thumbplay Music includes its own in-app media player and boasts several compelling features, including:

• Unlimited, on-demand access to any artist or album; millions of songs to choose from
• Build a personal music collection with Favorites and effortless Playlist creation; auto-sync between smartphone and PC/Mac
• Online and offline access: No connection? No problem!  Listen to music on the subway or in-flight.  Available anytime, anywhere. (Offline access currently only available on BlackBerry devices; coming soon for Android and iPhone.)
• Genie for music discovery: Instantly generate customized recommendations from favorite songs
• Search: Find music by artist, song, album or genre; includes free previews of all songs
• Import existing iTunes® playlists within Thumbplay Music's companion desktop app. With a few clicks, recreate iTunes playlists and have them available on smartphone and PC/Mac.
• Free, "no strings attached" three-day trial; subscriptions are then available for $9.99/month.

Thumbplay, which enjoys sustained profitability, has built an award-winning service centered on delivering millions of pieces of mobile content to 95 percent of U.S. devices among every major carrier. Thumbplay is leveraging its existing network of more than 8,000 distribution partners to promote Thumbplay Music.

* NPD's wireless market research of smartphone unit sales to consumers: RIM 36%, Android 28% and Apple 21%. (Q12010)

** Yankee Group (2009)

ABOUT THUMBPLAY

Thumbplay, Inc. is the leading mobile entertainment provider in the U.S.  Thumbplay Music, the company's cloud-based, streaming music service for smartphones and PCs/Macs, was launched in January 2010 with more than 8 million songs under license. Thumbplay.com features licensed music, video and games from some of the world's largest entertainment companies, including: EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as several independent labels and artists and video game companies. Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay was founded in September 2004. Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com or at m.thumbplay.com from a mobile phone.

Thumbplay Music is available on the Apple iPhone® and the iPod Touch® with an Operating System of 3 or higher.

Thumbplay Music is available on the following smartphones using the Android™ mobile technology platform with an Operating System of 1.6 or higher: DROID Incredible by HTC™, DROID Eris by HTC™, (Motorola™) Droid™, HTC Nexus One™, HTC® G1™ and the HTC® myTouch™ 3G. 

Thumbplay Music is currently available on the following BlackBerry® smartphones: BlackBerry® Tour™ 2 - Bold™ 9650, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900, BlackBerry® Tour™ 9630, BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530, BlackBerry® Storm™ 2 9550, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520 and the BlackBerry® Curve™ 8530.

All trademarks property of their respective owners. No partnerships implied. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.

SOURCE Thumbplay