Mobile music deals take suppliers list down to three.

The mobile music download market has further consolidated with a series of deals, leaving just three companies providing back-end platforms to the UK operators.

Just a year ago, around a dozen different companies handled such responsibilities, but new agreements have left the sector largely under the control of Groove Mobile, OD2 and Musiwave.

LA-based Groove Mobile, which has been running the Orange download store since 2005, has now won the contract to provide a download infrastructure to the leading mobile music operator 3. It makes Groove Mobile the biggest aggregator in the sector.

Meanwhile, OD2, which was spun out of parent company Loudeye, and then acquired by Nokia, took control of the handset manufacturer's latest music offering - Music Recommenders - while it is also working on a planned launch in quarter four of an agreement with O2.

While T-Mobile and Virgin are yet to enter the mobile download sector, Vodafone continues to use download technology supplied by French company Musiwave, a partnership it struck in 2002.

Last year, a raft of companies were involved in behind-the-scenes operations to deliver mobile downloads, but while there are still a number of content providers, it now falls to just three players to run the back-end technology.