Mobile Music to Generate $5.5B in ’15

February 24, 2011

juniper-mobile-music-global-revenue-feb-2011.JPGMusic consumed on mobile handsets will globally generate $5.5 billion annually in 2015, according to a new white paper from Juniper Research. This represents a 77% rise from $3.1 billion from 2010.

Mobile music, as defined in this report, is musical tracks, tones and videos consumed on devices that are also mobile phones. Within this definition of mobile music, Juniper divides mobile music into a number of digital products. The principal categories are ringtones, ringback tones, full-track services and music video.

Digital Music Sales Grow 940%

juniper-global-recorded-music-sales-feb-2011.JPGJuniper quotes a 2010 report from the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) indicating that between 2004-2009, sales of digital music, both online and mobile, increased by 940%. In addition, sales of physical music during the same period fell by 30%, which Juniper says places increasing importance on the digital medium for the music industry.

In 2009, global recorded music sales approached $25 billion. Physical sales still represented well more than half of that figure, despite their decline and the rapid rise of digital sales.

Digital Revenue of 4 Largest Recording Cos. Grows

Furthermore, Juniper analysis indicates digital revenue of the world’s largest four recording companies has increased as a proportion of total revenues during the last four years. For fiscal year 2006, revenue from digital music for EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music was on average 10% of their total.

However, by the end of fiscal year 2009 this figure had more than doubled to 22%. EMI, in its fiscal year 2009 report stated that it expected this trend to continue with the figure reaching 30% by 2013.

Global Mobile Penetration Skyrockets

Juniper also uses data on substantially growing global penetration of mobile devices to support its argument that mobile music will become a cornerstone of the music distribution industry. Mobile penetration exceeded 100% in Western Europe in 2006 and in Central & Eastern Europe in 2007. Juniper analysis indicates other key markets where penetration has exceeded this mark include Argentina, Australia, Chile, Hong Kong, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

In the US, where adoption often lagged well behind that in Europe, penetration passed 90% in 2009; in India and China, penetration stood at 62% and 60% respectively at the end of 2010; only in a handful of (overwhelmingly sub-Saharan Africa) markets does penetration remain below 15%. Global penetration of active SIMs reached 50% at the end of 2007 and by the end of 2010 stood at 73%.

Spain Leads EU5 in Mobile Music

Out of the EU5 nations of UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, Spain led in listening to music on a mobile phone (31.1% compared to overall average 25.2%) in November 2010, according to recent comScore MobiLens data. No other EU5 nation approached this level of mobile music penetration; Germany followed with a rate of 26.2%.

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