Consumers have a variety of choices when it comes to listening to music. Satellite and broadcast along with online radio, CDs and downloads. Mobile phone handsets and mobile music are emerging to become an important channel.
The amount of money that mobile phone users worldwide will spend on music received on mobile handsets will reach $32.2 billion by 2010 according to “Outlook for the Global Music Market, 2005-2010” report, from Gartner Dataquest. The estimate for spending in 2007 on mobile music is $13.7 billion.
Mobile music includes services such as ringtone; realtones and ring backtones along with full song downloads. It is the second most popular mobile data service but is significantly behind short message service in both use and revenue.
The Garnet report suggests that the two factors that are driving mobile music are personalization and entertainment. The use of ringtones and ringback tones is a form of self-expression in the ongoing trend towards personalization. With the music playing capability of the mobile phone it can act as a substitute to portable music players like the iPod for entertainment.
“The mobile phone has become the device that people carry everywhere, in all circumstances,” said Stephanie Pittet, a Gartner analyst. “Over-the-air downloads mean that people no longer have to be at a desk to plug in the device. Billing via a mobile phone is secure and easy, and for operators, it is easy to target customers with personalized content because one mobile phone SIM card is used by one person most of the time.”
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