Generator has released a report on mobile music predicting that Europeans will spend $640 million on full-track music downloads to mobile phones in 2010. Real music ringtones are forecast to be worth $1.2 billion which will mean mobiles will account for 15% of total music sales by 2010, compared to 3.4% this year. Most of the growth in full-track downloads will come from music brands and third-party content providers reaching mobile users directly…the operators’ efforts are going to change dramatically as the market develops.
Although the upgrade cycle of mobile handsets gives the mobile industry a natural way to get MP3-enabled mobiles into the hands of its customers mobile will not replace portable music players according to Generator, and the successful players will cover both mobile and online music sales…and assumedly other channels as well.
“The online and mobile music markets are not seperate and players on both sides of the fence now realise they need to offer a total, branded solution that includes PC and device as well as online and mobile music stores,” said Andrew Sheehy, Research Director at Generator. Taken as a whole, downloaded music (including full-length mobile downloads, real music ringtones and online music) will account for 39% of music sales by 2010…It appears that online music will grow faster than mobile music. (Click on this graph to view)
From the executive summary:
However, Europe’s current full-track mobile download services are at a very early stage and it is unrealistic to compare even the leading products with a well-designed online service. In the device area things are brighter and the very latest music phones such as the Nokia N91 are close to the point where they can be compared favourably with an equivalent dedicated digital music player. But the level of integration between phone and PC and between mobile and online music stores is very poor and this will act as a brake that will define the speed with which the market develops.
But today’s challenges will be addressed and both full-track mobile download services and music phones will be subject to on-going, steady improvement over the coming years. Some of the improvements will come as a result of better technology while others can only come through evolution of the business models that underpin the services. Although they are keen to make improvements, mobile operators and handset vendors will not relentlessly develop the full-track download market at the expense of other important markets such as imaging, gaming and TV plus a range of others, each of which requires a focussed program.
I agree that the most successful mobile music services will combine mobile downloads with an online store that allows songs to be transfered to mobiles. The two different formats fullfill different aspects of music sales, on handling bulk music sales that people go out of their way to search for — online, obviously — while mobile music is good for impulse buying because of its convenience. For that reason I think a successful music service will allow songs to be transfered from the handset to the computer as well as the other way.
The Mobile Music: Full-track Downloads report is available here.
The Mobile Music section is sponsored by mobZilla
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