For users with a range of Sony products, adding mobile access to both the basic and premium services could prove to be attractive and will help Sony tie users into its products and services. The addition of a mobile element to its service may help boost the number of subscribers; mobile access has been a key driver of growth in paid subscriber numbers for services such as Spotify.

The £9.99 premium subscription offers a similar service to products already on the market (such as Spotify, Deezer or MOG). The lack of caching for offline playback will likely further hinder uptake of Sony's mobile application. Users concerned about lack of network coverage while on the move or those with limits on mobile data consumption may find other services more appealing.

So far, cloud-based digital locker services announced or launched by Amazon, Apple and Google are currently only available in the US. Sony's initial wider geographical reach and its personalised radio service (something not provided with other digital locker services) may help boost take-up of its basic £3.99 per month offer. However, the $3.99 per month price tag may seem expensive in comparison with competing offers from Apple's iCloud (free syncing of iTunes Store content plus $24.99 per year for other music), Amazon's Cloud Drive and Player (5GB free and 20GB free with any Amazon MP3 album purchase) and Google's Android Music (free while in beta). The ability to access existing music without the need to upload individual tracks will give Sony an advantage over Amazon and Google (in addition to its personalised radio). Sony will also have to compete against existing personalised mobile radio service providers such as Pandora, Slacker or Last.fm.

Napster offers access to one of the largest music catalogues (15m tracks compared with Sony's 7m). Unlike competing services such as Spotify and we7 which offer ad-supported free versions, apart from a seven day trial, Napster is paid-for only (the company experimented with a free tier in the US, but the proposition was crippled by a three plays per track limitation, did not see significant uptake and was discontinued in March 2010). Napster will hope to take advantage of the fact that leading European on-demand music service Spotify has yet to launch in Germany, though a similar service, Simfy is available. Simfy offers premium mobile access for €9.99 per month (significantly cheaper than the €12.95 charged by Napster). Available for PC, Android and iOS devices in Germany, Simfy provides access to a catalogue of 11m songs. Napster has not released any subscriber numbers since its acquisition by BestBuy in when it had 700,000 users, but IHS Screen Digest believes that the company has since struggled to maintain this subscriber base

In Europe, on-demand premium digital music services have been growing in popularity over the last year, but the uptake has largely been driven by bundled and freemium offers. By the end of Q1 2011, Spotify counted more than 1m paid subscribers (in seven European countries) and French service Deezer had 800,000 paying users, thanks to being offered by Orange in France as part of a bundled service. The lack of a free, ad-supported option will help both Sony's and Napster's services to keep costs in check (ad-funded on-demand services as a rule struggle to break even as their per track royalties obligations often exceed revenues), but at the expense of a smaller addressable base. In response to its rapidly expanding number of free users (for which advertising revenues have yet to cover the cost of royalty payments), Spotify moved to limit free access in April 2011. The new restrictions on Spotify Free/Open subscribers include a maximum of 10 hours access per month and limiting playback of individual tracks to a maximum of five times per month, after the first six months.