Telephia: 27 Percent of U.K. 3G Subscribers Download Full Track Music Onto Their Mobile Phone Via Various Methods

According to Telephia, "Twenty-seven percent of U.K. 3G mobile subscribers download full track music on their mobile phones. Full track music download penetration is more than 11 percentage points higher among 3G subscribers, as compared to non-3G subscribers at 16 percent. On average, 3G subscribers in the U.K. download 4.1 music tracks per month and spend an average of 8.3 hours per month listening to full track music on their mobile phones."

Telephia found that "many 3G subscribers prefer to use their PC for storage and transfer of music to their mobile phone, revealing that the PC remains an essential part of the music experience. Forty-four percent of 3G subscribers would prefer to transfer computer music files that have been ripped from their home music collection to their phone. Only fourteen percent of 3G subscribers prefer to download full track music to their phones over the wireless network from an operator's site and/or a non-operator site. Moreover, 3G subscribers want seamless play capabilities for all music file formats, with 18 percent wanting their mobile devices to work with all music types, including MP3, Windows' WMA, and Apple's AAC."

Bernard Brenner at Telephia said, "The popularity of downloading full track music on mobile phones has increased. But even with faster speeds on 3G and the growing amount of music content available through a wireless connection, subscribers still rely heavily on their personal computers as the central hub of their music activity."

The lead is a bit misleading because they make it seem that 3G users in the UK are more apt to download full music tracks over the air (OTA), when in reality it's via a variety of methods. It would also be nice if they had some data on consumer price tolerance for OTA downloads. Faster 3G speeds means little if you're gouging the customers for the privilege to download OTA. It's no surprise consumers rely hevily on PCs for their music since it's much cheaper to acquire music (it's even free if you're into that thing)...

Table 1: Method for Downloading Full Track Music to Mobile Phones
(U.K.)
                                         3G           Non-3G
Download Method                               Subscribers  Subscribers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From a computer, ripped from home music
collection                                           44%          49%
From a computer, downloaded from a peer-to-
peer site                                            19%          12%
From a computer, downloaded from a paid
website                                              14%          14%
Over the air from an operator's site                  10%           5%
Over the air from a non-operator's site                4%          11%

Source: Telephia 3G U.K. Report, Q2 2006