Online music service Napster is hoping a new tie-up with Dixons will do for legal music downloading what the high street store did for internet service provider Freeserve.

Napster, the online music site that once provoked the wrath of music executives to their knees, is now being touted as the potential saviour of the industry.

It plans to launch in the UK this summer and today unveiled a deal to promote the service in 1,100 Dixons, PC World and Currys stores.

Under the deal, Dixons and PC World will install Napster on all their own-brand PCs and promote the service in stores.

They will also sell Napster branded goods, including recordable CDs and CD wallets. The president of Napster, Brad Duea, said that the deal was a key plank of Napster's marketing strategy as it attempts to catch up with Apple's early lead in the music download market thanks to the success of its iPod player.

"This is an extremely important deal for Napster in the UK and represents a significant development in the evolution of the UK music market. We are impressed with Dixons Group's track record for driving the market for subscription and online services in the UK such as Freeserve and AOL," he added.

A key factor in the success of Freeserve, the UK's first mass-market pay-as-you-go internet service provider, was the availability and promotion of the service in Dixons stores.

Since Dixons sold Freeserve - recently renamed Wanadoo - to France Telecom, it has signed a new promotional deal with AOL.

"The market for online music in the UK is growing and by demystifying subscription options for consumers we will drive this new development," said John Clare, the Dixons Group chief executive.

"We believe that the combination of Napster's subscription and download service and its interactive musical community, will offer an unrivalled digital music experience," he added.

Napster last night revealed its full year results and said revenues for the quarter to the end of March had almost doubled to $6.1m.

The company predicts revenues of between $30m and $40m for the year to the end of April 2005 as legal online download services take off.

Mr Duea said that the future of the download market was in the subscription model that allows users to pay a flat monthly fee to download as much music as they like to their PC. In addition, Napster also offers a pay-per-download service.

"We're still very early in the game. To succeed long term, you need to form a strong relationship with consumers and deliver an excellent experience," he added.

He said the company was also looking for other partners and did not rule out a deal with a traditional music retailer.

Record company bosses are banking on the European launches of Napster and Apple's iTunes, together with a series of new legal download services from the likes of Sony and Coca-Cola, to help reverse falling single sales and discourage the use of illegal filesharing sites.

Napster was relaunched as a legitimate business in October last year after it was bought by software company Roxio.

The filesharing service was crippled by its legal fight with the record industry, despite being bailed out by German media giant Bertelsmann.

Roxio bought the name and rights to the company, and brought back whizkid founder Shawn Fanning as a consultant.

Napster, which was used by 60 million people a day at the peak of its illegal incarnation and is now selling some 300,000 tracks a week at 99 cents each, recently confirmed it would launch in the UK "before the end of the summer".

In an effort to replicate the community atmosphere of the original Napster, the site also features an irreverent online music magazine, interactive radio stations, music videos and email and chat options.

Buoyed by the success of its iPod music player over Christmas, Apple is also expected to launch its popular iTunes download service, which has sold 70 million tracks in the US in the past year, in the UK this summer.

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