The future of 3G mobile phone sales struck a discordant note when a survey of 3,000 consumers showed that the number of mobile phone users expressing an interest in downloading music to their sets has halved since a similar poll a year ago. This raises questions about the public’s appetite for one of the perceived selling points of 3G technology.
The study, by Entertainment Media Research in association with law firm Olswang, found that only 11% of consumers were already paying for music downloads on their mobile – half the level that had expressed interest in music downloads in a 2005 survey.
Although the proportion of people claiming to be interested in mobile downloads had risen slightly in the past year, from 21% to 25%, just 4% said they were “very likely” to start mobile downloading in the future, and 44% were very unlikely to do so.
The survey revealed that the so-called early adopters liked the idea of downloading to a mobile but that a second wave of consumers seemed unlikely to follow the leaders.
The new findings follow an August report from the IFPI, a music industry trade group, which concluded that current music applications for mobile phones “still fall some way short of those on dedicated music players, such as the iPod”.
Just one in five 3G customers use their phones for music, the IFPI revealed.
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