(openPR) - Stuttgart, Germany and Manila, Philippines — In a constant effort to encourage mobile users to use their mobile phones more, the mobile industry is transforming mobile music applications into a richer user’s experience rather then just a simple download.

According to the latest report published by InfoCom about mobile music applications, carriers and service providers encourage subscribers to become more active in the process of downloading music, providing additional services such as the artist’s biography, the song lyrics and encouraging to interact and share with friends via SMS. Some providers also offer additional services, such as latest events of favourite artists — for instance concerts, gigs, autograph signing — as well as interaction with other music fans through communities or upload of reviews and comments about artists and songs.

“A large share of the mobile download services available charges downloads according to a subscription-based pricing model”, InfoCom Research Analyst in Manila commented, “For instance, in South Korea, KT’s Dosirak provides mobile music download subscriptions of one, three, six and twelve months. Mostly, though, providers bundle songs on a monthly basis offering an average price of about €6 for 10 songs/month”. In order to increase usage and, therefore, boost revenues several service providers offer cheaper prices for music download services bundled with mobile and/or broadband tariff plans.

InfoCom Research Analyst continued: “Thanks to the increasing number of agreements between providers and record labels, DRM-free offers are becoming more and more common and produce a positive impact on mobile music sales”. Consumers find it more appealing to purchase DRM-free tracks as it enables them to keep a permanent copy as well as transfer it to different devices. “And this more cooperative attitude of the record labels was an awaited move from the mobile industry as one of the main drivers for the final take-up of mobile music services”, he added. As a matter of facts, rampant music piracy practises discourage subscribers to download songs legally as technological advancements enable users to get easily free mobile music through side-loading and peer-to-peer file sharing. Official initiatives from some governments to fight piracy, for instance with more severe and rigorous sentences have helped in some countries to limit it and push legal digital music sales, in general. However, there is still a certain reluctance of record labels to offer completely DRM-free songs and the “walled garden’ approach still limits, in some cases, the DRM use or the availability of most popular charts.

About this report: Mobile music is one of the topics included in InfoCom latest Towards the Mobile Music Experience, the first report of the new Series Mobile Broadband 2010 — Creating Mobile Value, a new series of reports focused on specific topics all around mobile broadband. This report presents the most interesting mobile music applications appeared recently around the world, with pricing, commercial strategies to increase usage and boost revenues as well as the most common business models, providing also striking findings in a concise yet very effective way.

InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with over 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom’s independent and fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.

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