Mobile Phone Reviews
 
 
Bad news for mobile music phones

Mon, 04 Sep 2006

Mobile downloads are so far a niche market in the UK which may be in danger of stalling, according to a survey of 3,000 consumers by Entertainment Media Research .

The survey found that just 11 per cent of consumers were already paying for music downloads on their mobile, only half the level that expressed interest in downloading in a similar survey a year ago.

Despite a huge investment in advertising to push phone users beyond texting and making calls, the proportion of those saying they are interested in downloading music to a phone has edged up only slightly over the last year to 25 per cent from 21 per cent in 2005.

The study found that the mobile industry had succeeded in attracting "early adopters" to the technology, but a "second wave" of consumers was unconvinced with 44 per cent saying they were not interested in downloads and 36 per cent preferring to download over their home computer .

There was also bad news in the survey for Apple, which is expected to introduce a mobile phone version of its popular iPod music player. Twice as many respondents favoured mobile handsets incorporating an MP3 player than said they would prefer music players with mobile phone features.

The figures follow a report last week from the IFPI, a music industry trade group, which concluded that current music applications for mobile phones "still fall some way short of those on dedicated music players, such as [Apple’s] iPod" .

"Mobile music has a number of attractive key drivers, but also some barriers to overcome," Keith Jopling, director of strategic research and analysis for the IFPI, said.

"The next year or two are likely to continue to be experimental, with growth coming from 2008 onwards when compelling music applications for mobile phones are more widely available and when 3G use is more widespread," He added.

IFPI has found that only one in five consumers had used their 3G phones to download a music track or video .
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