Mobile music expected to be a hit

The United States has been slow to embrace music on mobile devices compared with 15 other countries, a leading market information provider found, but mobile-music businesses say this trend will soon change.

According to TNS Research, 19 percent of all mobile-phone owners worldwide now listen to music on their phones. Sixteen percent of those surveyed said they listened daily to all their music by phone compared to 15 percent on stereo systems and 10 percent on personal digital music players.

But despite the recent push of mobile-music downloads in the United States, it found only 4 percent of U.S. consumers listen to music on their cell phones on a regular basis attributing the lack of interest to the slow introduction of music-enabled handsets and the cost of devices and downloading.

The study that surveyed 6,800 adults aged 16 to 49 from 15 countries between July and August 2005 ranked the United States last among those whose population used mobile-music devices regularly; 26 percent in South Korea, 23 percent in Hong Kong and 19 percent in the United Kingdom.

In a separate study, TNS found that of 1,976 wireless users, only 10 percent indicated that they were either "extremely or highly likely" to purchase a wireless phone with an integrated digital music player. It also found that nearly half of all users had no interest in having music on their mobiles, and another 25 percent were concerned about the expense associated with an integrated music and mobile device.

However, mobile-music-services companies including Groove Mobile expect the music-mobile business to be booming in the states -- reminiscent of the multimillion-dollar profits coming in from real music ringtone sales.

"Music fans are driving technology and technology is enabling what music fans want," said Adam Sexton, vice president of marketing and product management at Groove Mobile. "They want their music mobile and instantly."

Groove Mobile recently teamed up with Sprint to introduce the first mobile-music service available in the United States, which was released last week. The Sprint Music Store powered by Groove Mobile allows Sprint users to download full-track songs to their mobile phones or computers using two media-enriched phones, the SANYO MM-9000 and the Samsung MM-A940, that were also introduced.

"The ability to have music everywhere you go, we believe that's going to be a huge driver," said Sexton, who also says that the mobile devices and music will develop a new consumption model.

"Mobile music is to 'hit' content as the PC is to 'catalog content,'" said Sexton, saying that mobile music is for consumers who desire hit songs instantly while the PC allows them to search for different variations or unique versions of the same songs.

Comparing the mobile-music business with that of the recent phenomenon of ringtones, he expects the same trend to ensue as more advanced network infrastructures and handheld sets are introduced to American consumers.

Sexton believes that the new trend is likely to become popular as sound quality, user-friendly menus and quicker Internet services like theirs are available as well as the whole industry initiating powerful opportunities and tie-ins for the music and mobile industry themselves.

"Whereas carriers were marketing the large number of minutes on handsets," he said, "they have now moved to a more complete experience, recognizing the powerful and connecting element of the (mobile) device."

Copyright 2005 by United Press International