Music available for downloading onto mobile phones is a lifeline for the shrinking global music industry and critical to wireless providers with an urgent need to recoup investment in their networks. Worldwide revenue from sales of mobile music is projected to increase from $434 million in 2005 to $7.7 billion by 2010, in a new eMarketer report. While sales of music in digital form will comprise 35% of the overall music industry revenue by 2010, sales of music onto mobile phones will make up 65% of that digital slice of the music pie.
Over the past two years, music fans enamored of the novelty of mobile music, have created a situation of "found money" for the record industry. This year mobile music will shift from being the purview of the hard-core music fan to a mass market, directed by the tastes of more casual listeners, says John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst eMarketer, who wrote the report.
"The era of found money will end this year," he says. "It will be replaced by an era of 'heavy lifting' involving marketing mobile music services to consumers who now have multiple, legitimate choices for experiencing music anywhere they want on most any device."
Marketers in the music and mobile telecom industries will face the challenge of driving rapid revenue growth, while consumer industry marketers will find new opportunities to engage with consumers using music as a currency."
Posted to the site on 29th May 2006
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