Rhapsody flags iPhone success against on-demand rivals

Music subscription service Rhapsody has hailed its success on iPhone, releasing stats showing its downloads are well ahead of rivals Thumbplay, Rdio and Mog.
The company cites App Store chart rankings collected using the PositionApp service, which show Rhapsody in ninth place in the US free music apps chart for the week of 5 September, and for the 14 September.
By contrast, Thumbplay was at 51st and 43rd, Rdio at 150th and 181st, and Mog at 154th and 158th for those two dates.
"Consumers are verifying what we have worked diligently to achieve: the Rhapsody experience on mobile is second to none," says president Jon Irwin.
These rankings only tell half the story, however. Rhapsody is comparing itself against direct rivals - on-demand premium music apps.


What it hasn't included are streaming radio or video apps. PositionApp shows that currently, Pandora Radio (2nd), Clear Channel's iheart Radio (4th) and Vevo (5th) are above Rhapsody in the US free music apps chart.
Meanwhile, the chart only measures downloads, but gives no information on how lucrative iPhone is proving for Rhapsody - since it doesn't track how many of those downloaders go on to sign up for a subscription.
Even so, the chart shows Rhapsody is more successful than its direct rivals at getting onto handsets in the first place - the low rankings for the much-hyped Rdio and Mog are surprising.
The iPhone app was released in September 2009, and notched up 200,000 downloads in its first 20 days, and 500,000 in its first month and a half.
Irwin promises more to come from Rhapsody in mobile, with a BlackBerry version soon to make its debut, while it's already available on Android.
"Mobile will continue to be a major area of focus for Rhapsody as we launch more groundbreaking products this year," he says.
Spotify isn't mentioned in the rankings, since it's not yet available in the US. As a point of comparison, it's currently the third-ranked free music app in the UK.