More ways for phone users to download and play music

SEVERAL online music services will be available here in the coming months, offering fans more ways to download and play songs on their computers, MP3 players and cellphones.

Leading the charge are phone makers Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, all eager to seize on the booming popularity of multimedia phones which double up as MP3 players.

Nokia will open an online store here in the next three months, while Sony Ericsson plans to do so by the end of the year.

Motorola, which bought homegrown music store Soundbuzz in January, will release a phone next month that will let a user browse its entire music collection. He can then choose which songs to download to his phone.

Until now, music lovers here have only had Soundbuzz and SingTel's MusicVibes service, which catered only to its subscribers.