Napster today said it has doubled the number of people subscribing to its music rental services in the past 12 months.

The digital music provider's subscriber base now stands at more than 550,000 users, Napster claimed, with nine per cent of that total - 50,000 - coming through the company's subscription programme for university students.

In January 2005, the company said: "Napster ends calendar 2004 after just over a year of operation with 270,000 paid subscribers, including 44,000 paid subscribers participating in its university programmes."

On that basis, regular subscriber numbers were up 85.2 per cent, and college subs were up 13.6 per cent.

Napster's Q4 FY2005 results are due to be made public early next month, but today's subscriber numbers titbit comes just days after a web report citing sources "close to the situation" claimed the company was preparing to make a "substantial" number of job cuts, possibly with a view to selling or closing the company.

Napster denied the allegations. ®

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