The Hindu Business Line : ‘Music applications fastest growing value addition on mobile phones’

The study, which interviewed 16,000 respondents across 29 countries, found that the use of MP3 players on mobile phones has risen by 78 per cent in the last year and the use of radio via mobile by 140 per cent.

Mr Matthew Froggatt, Managing Director of TNS’s Global Technology sector, says, “Radio-enabled mobiles take away the need to have a separate music device like an MP3 player and should lead phone manufacturers to win the battle for the control of earphones.”

He added, “It is driving a whole new wave of customers to service providers and has massive implications for spreading media communications out to a wider audience more quickly.”

The radio is a hugely underrated media tool which has suffered at the hands of TV music channels and the Internet. “This new outlet through mobile phones may help to sustain its life well into this millennium. In some markets, like India, launching a mobile phone without radio-listening capabilities is a major barrier to winning consumer sales,” he said.

Mr Parijat Chakraborty, Vice-President (Technology), TNS India, adds, “Demographic diversity, coupled with differences in culture and taste, has made India an ideal breeding and testing ground for many mobile value added services. Though India is quite behind in terms of contribution of VAS in overall revenue, the country is ahead of many developed countries in terms of variety of VAS for consumers. Naturally, music-loving Indians find it a winning deal to have their mobile handset doubling up as centre of entertainment on the move.”

However, the music industry needs to be cautious of seeing this as a money-spinner: 22 per cent of global users now side-load music (transfer from PC or laptop) compared to just 16 per cent who download directly.

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