Monday, Feb 05, 2007
Hot New Music Phones Go Head to Head With MP3 Players
|
|
 People wait at the entrance of the MIDEM
© AFP/File Stephane Danna Key entertainment industry player Brad Duea, who heads up Napster, the now legal US subscription-based online music service, believes the music-rich new portables could outstrip MP3 players in the United States within two years.
Duea’s predictions and the excitement created earlier this month when Apple unveiled its "magical" new iPhone ensured star billing for the mobile phone sector at this year’s influential five-day MIDEM music industry trade fair that opened its doors here Sunday.
The floundering record industry, battered by plummeting CD sales worldwide and illegal music downloading, has pinned its hopes on the emerging digital music market and phones in particular, to bring in much needed new revenues.
And 2007 looks set to be the year these hopes start to be realised.
The explosion in digital music services, spurred by consumer demand and a plethora of new delivery channels, helped online and mobile music sales to jump 106 percent year-on-year to 945 million US dollars in the first half of 2006, according to the latest figures released by the International Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the recording industry’s trade body.
Mobile music phones are playing a large role in this digital evolution that industry experts here this week emphasised has still to become a revolution.
Optimism, though, is running high that the long-awaited revolution is on the horizon.
 Graphic chart showing the growth in the digital music market.
© AFPThus Duea’s forecast in an interview with MIDEM News that "within two years, music-enabled cell phones will surpass the shipment of stand-alone MP3 players in the US," could come about.
Nokia has said it expects that mobile phone users will reach the three billion mark in 2007. In addition, the mobile phone GSM Association predicts that 90 percent of the world’s population will have mobile access by 2010.
With numbers like these, therefore, it is perhaps no surprise that sales of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman, the most popular music phone currently on the market, topped the 60 million unit mark in 2006.
Walkman sales in 2006 also hugely outstripped the 39 million iPod digital music players sold by Apple over the same period, Sony Ericsson head Miles Flint pointed out in a keynote speech to MIDEM participants Sunday when asked for his reaction to the Apple iPhone announcement.
2006 was a year of "astonishing growth" for Sony Ericsson and its Walkman range of music phones, Flint said.
Flint emphasised that Sony Ericsson has enhanced the music offer on its phones through its M-Buzz and PlayNow music services.
A partnership between Sony Ericsson and Sony TV, the M-Buzz add-on is all about breaking new unsigned music talent by giving them a platform to get discovered by phone users, Flint said.
Other enhanced services for Walkman users include personalised play lists as well as song recognition that identifies a song a user likes and then offers them the possibility of purchasing it.
TV and Internet-enabled video will also become a big part of the industry in coming years, Flint told AFP in an interview.
The Walkman range has been expanded to between eight and 10 models since its launch a year and half ago. The cheapest model, the cute cool W200 simple bar-type phone that is available in a smart black or white finish, will cost between just one euro and 35 euros in France if it’s bought along with a subscription to a cellphone operator.
Anyone looking for the full all-singing, all-dancing music and in-built computer experience should also look at the new W950 smart phone model that is already proving popular in Asia.
Other phone makers, particularly world leader Nokia as well as Motorola, are also offering great music phones.
Nokia’s new multimedia N-series of sleek, elegant music phones also offers a host of enhanced music services, including the possibility of podcasting.
With features like those and a host of others the handset makers promise are in the pipeline, music phones certainly look set to be on the move.
©AFP
News Copyright © South Asian Women's Forum. May not be reproduced without explicit written permission |
