Struggling Napster taps mobile music for future

During an overall-disappointing first-quarter earnings call, highlighted by declining subscriber numbers and the possible sale of the company, digital music service Napster pointed to mobile music as its hopeful savior. CEO Chris Gorog revealed Napster's planned full-song music download service (with a library of 2 million songs) will go live next week with southeastern regional carrier SunCom and hopes for additional "top-tier" carriers later this year. 

In a research note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said targeting the mobile music market would increase Napster's addressable market tenfold. In addition, Napster's deal with Japanese mobile data pioneer NTT DoCoMo is expected to pay dividends. The question is whether Napster will be able to hold out long enough to capitalize on these strategies on its own, or whether it will be forced to sell itself to the highest bidder. What happens then is anybody's guess.

For more on Napster's earnings and mobile strategy:
- read the article in the San Jose Mercury News here
- or check out Napster's earnings release and earnings call transcript