Research claims 30 million to have music phones by year end

Jupiter Research believes that nearly 30 million US citizens are to have music phones by the end of 2007, but only a small percentage of them will actually use that functionality.

According to a new report, “Mobile Music: Target Impulse Purchases and Purchasers for Over-The-Air Downloads,” only about five percent of consumers report sideloading songs onto their phone (transferring digital songs from a PC to a phone), and only two percent report downloading songs over the air. So although some 27.9 million US consumers are expected to have music phones by the end of this year, the music functionality of the phone will remain significantly underutilised.

They suggest that even the iPhone won't drive the use of music phones to their full potential.

Barriers to use of this functionality include high over-the-air (OTA) costs, consumers already having a decent dedicated music player, and feature compromises in handsets that combine a phone and music player.

“While the iPhone could raise consumer awareness of, and interest in, music phones from other manufacturers and mobile operators, it is more likely to attract a unique market segment, hard for competitors to emulate,“ said Joe Laszlo, Research Director at Jupiter Research. “Apple fans and status seekers will rush out for a first generation iPhone; music fans will probably wait a while.”

Whatever you think of iTunes, it's clear that Apple has created a very elegant solution, even if at present over-the-air downloads to the iPhone aren't possible.

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