Nokia has hit back at recent concern over the success of its high-profile Comes With Music service by increasing investment in the product and announcing plans to launch in two new Asian markets this quarter. “The next two countries which we are going to roll-out in the next ten weeks are going to be in Asia, in Australia and Singapore,” Reuters cites Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s head of entertainment and communities, as stating at the MidemNet annual digital music event in Cannes. “We’ll be launching there in the first quarter of 2009, in February and March.” Ojanpera said that this year will see Nokia focus “very big investment” on its music services, targeting additional launches in the US and Latin America.

Last week, Mobile Business Briefing reported that the price of Nokia’s first mobile phone to support its high-profile Comes With Music service in the UK has been cut by more than a third, prompting analyst speculation the unlimited downloads service is struggling from poor sales. Nokia’s Comes With Music service is being watched closely by industry insiders as it marks the biggest push yet into the Internet services market for the world’s largest handset vendor. The Finnish company is taking on the might of Apple’s iTunes service and has signed-up all four major music labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner – for the UK service, as well as many independent labels, giving users unlimited access to millions of tracks that they can also keep at the end of the year’s subscription period. Reuters notes that Nokia’s Ojanpera said at the Cannes event that the company had recently secured a breakthrough on a pan-European publishing deal and is also considering providing some content in exchange for advertising, such as videos and news from music magazines to accompany the sale of music.