DhaliwalBrown’s “The Future of Mobile Music” analyzes the growth of the mobile music market in 38 countries. The report finds that mobile music is the most valuable mobile content market globally, generating gross revenues of $4.4 billion in 2005, rising to nearly $6 billion in 2006. Mobile now accounts for nearly 15% of the entire music market globally.
(PRWEB) October 26, 2005 -- From the authors of “mobileYouth – your guide to successfully developing and marketing mobile products to Youth” comes new insight – DhaliwalBrown’s “The Future of Mobile Music” covering ringtones, realtones, ringback tones, mobile music commerce and packet radio.
Five Key market drivers
- The emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China account for the vast majority of ringtone download growth–India, for example, demonstrates annual average growth of over 250%.
- Subscription based entertainment channels offering music, music video, movies and music commerce are emerging in Japan and Korea as key tools for operators to increase customer loyalty.
- Mobile operators will gradually move to “all you can eat” flat rate pricing to lift the ceiling from the data market. Operators stand to save $300 per user per year by using subscription based entertainment services to prevent churn.
- Niche segments, adult users and ethnics are the neglected customers. Youth currently account for nearly 90% of the mobile music market, but the overlooked “over 25s” could potentially generate a further $2 billion in spending if only targeted correctly.
- 2006 will be the year of record label commitment with support for realtones through operator partnership. Mobile provides a more effective marketing channel than the existing physical distribution of CD singles.
Five Key market inhibitors
- Educated users turning to ripping music from their CDs for mobile usage in advanced markets take the steam out of download growth.
- Lack of content control by the mobile operators continues to cast doubt over the long term credibility of the off-portal market.
- Record labels using mobile as a sales rather than marketing channel drains resources from both sectors and fails to utilize the channel’s capabilities.
- Record labels distributing mainstream offerings such as Eminem or 50cent through the mobile channel serves only to cannibalize existing revenues and perpetuates the lack of supply to niche consumer groups.
Japan continues to lead the market, accounting for nearly 40% of the 5 billion ringtones downloaded globally in 2005. However, early signs show the advanced Asian markets beginning to mature with single digit revenue growth in 2006 anticipated. The authors of DhaliwalBrown’s “The Future of Mobile Music” warn that revenue slowdowns will hit providers in the rest of the world in 2007 and contingency planning must be implemented today.
Graham Brown, lead author of DhaliwalBrown’s “The Future of Mobile Music” adds “Consumer appetite for mobile music continues to grow, although the nature of their purchases is changing. Consumers are increasingly demanding niche genres and more advanced music formats. To survive in over-supplied mature markets, providers need to consider covering increasingly niche offerings combined with new growth opportunities of adult and ethnic users.”
About DhaliwalBrown
DhaliwalBrown is passionate about consumers, providing advisory services for the telecoms and media sectors through its ownership of the Wireless World Forum and mobileYouth projects. DhaliwalBrown provides insight to more than 700 companies in 60 countries helping them understand how changes in consumption of technology and the use of media impact their business.
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