Australians keep access to Samsung Music Hub, despite global shutdown
Australian consumers will still be able to access Samsung's Music Hub on their Samsung smartphones, tablets and TVs, despite the service being quietly phased out globally.
First launched in Australia in October 2011, the service was available on that year's flagship phone, the Galaxy S II, as well as later rolling out for tablets, the recently-launched Galaxy S5 and even the brand's smart TVs. Samsung has now issued a global statement saying the music streaming service will be retired as of July 1, 2014, with the company instead opting to focus on standalone music services.
"Samsung remains committed to delivering rich content experiences and a wide range of choices to its customers through its services, such as MilkMusic and WatchOn, as well as those of its partners," the statement read. "In order to meet rapidly changing consumer needs, Samsung's services will remain available as individual apps rather than in one, single bundled storefront."
However, Samsung Australia has confirmed that Australian consumers will still be able to access the music streaming service, which is a separate entity to the global Samsung Music Hub platform.
"Samsung Music Hub in Australia has been developed for this country and for Australian customers," a Samsung Australia spokesperson said. "It is a separate platform from other music channels offered in other overseas markets.
"Samsung Electronics Australia remains committed to Samsung Music Hub in Australia and providing an amazing music experience through our products. We currently have no plans to discontinue Samsung Music Hub in this country."
Music Hub may not be the only content service to be retired in July, with talk that the Korean brand will also discontinue its Samsung Books app. Samsung launched a new Kindle for Samsung app on April 18, 2014, and users are already being directed to this app through the app store as the primary portal for reading books on their device.