Analyst: 50 percent of phones will play music by 2011
Music players are losing out in popularity to phones that pull double-duty, according to a market research report released Monday.
More than 500 million music phones were shipped worldwide in 2007, which puts that category of device 300 million units ahead of regular old portable music players, according to the report released Monday by MultiMedia Intelligence. The company is forecasting that by 2011, of the 941 million handsets that will ship worldwide, more than half will be music phones. (The report defines a music phone as a handset that plays music files, and has a memory card slot.)
The Walkman-branded W980 phone from Sony Ericsson is a phone but looks like a music player. Phones that play music are quickly outpacing standalone portable music players.
(Credit: Sony Ericsson)As the developed world begins to be saturated with cell phones, handset manufacturers and wireless operators are forced to look elsewhere to keep their profits up. For leading handset maker Nokia, its secret to staying on top of the competition is its growing business in emerging markets, like China, India, the Middle East, and Africa, according to my CNET News.com colleague Maggie Reardon.
The operators of wireless networks also need ways to increase revenue. So, though not everyone has a need for a data plan if they don't want e-mail on their phone, music is something almost everyone can relate to. Right now the most promising driver of profits on cell phones is music-playing capability.
"Music has been the first 'killer app' for the operators to drive the consumption of premium content on the handset," said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for MultiMedia Intelligence. To that end, MMI predicts the mobile music market will be worth $6 billion by the end of this year. "With such significant revenue and customer demand at stake, the operators' and handset providers' concerted efforts (will) use music as a central part of their handset strategies," the report says.
Update 1:55 p.m. PDT: As several commenters have pointed out below, buying a music phone doesn't necessarily mean it's used for playing music. (Case in point: my own Verizon enV has a 2GB microSD slot, and I've never transferred MP3 files to it. But that's mostly because my iPod earbuds don't work with the enV and I refuse to buy a separate set.) Music-playing ability was formerly a feature reserved for high-end phones, but as the technology gets cheaper, that means that those features will start to filter down to more inexpensive phones, which have always been the majority of the market.
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standalone players is because cell phone makers force people to
buy cell phones with music players. Very few people actually
use the players that come with their phones, and most would
prefer if the music player wasn't on there. Unfortunately the
phones that don't come with music players suck, so if you want
a descent phone you have to buy one with a music player. If I
had a few million in venture funding I would design a phone
that went back to the basics and had a lightweight, slim design,
and maybe a camera as an optional version.
in features. I think the trend should focus on letting each user
customize the phone/mp3 player's functions to suit the user.
This seems to be Apple's trend with their upcoming 3rd. party
software offerings. Perhaps other hardware manufacturer's will
take note.
Although it is nice to think that combining all my hand held
gadgets into one device will be convenient, I don't think I'll ever
use all the features the manufacturer's feel is necessary to woo
me over as a customer.
1. I want a great, tiny MP3 player. It should be the size of a stick of gum, should have a tiny screen, and a few buttons. It should have great sound and have headphones with a built-in microphone. It should have bluetooth and talk to...
2. My cell phone, a web-enabled smart phone with a big screen, like an iPhone or a Centro.
I want to be able to use my cell phone to wirelessly control my MP3 player. I want to be able to use it to download music and sync it via bluetooth. When the phone rings, I want the cell phone to pause the music on my MP3 player, and let me answer by pressing one of those buttons on the MP3 player. I want the two gadgets to feel like one seamless gadget. But I don't want to have to dig my phone out of my pocket to answer a call, or just see the title of a song. And I don't want to have to take my headphones out of my ears to answer a call either.
However, people do not purchase these phones for their music playing capability.
I have a Windows Mobile HTC TyTN and my wife has a Nokia N95. Both of these devices are superb multimedia devices, but this was not a decision factor when making the purchase. However, My 14 year old son has a Samsung 830 with a 2GB micro SD card. He does use it to play music, but even he insists that if I bought him a dedicated media player, he would rather use that than sacrifice his phone's battery life.
Who knows. It could happen. In the 1960's they got a computer to fit inside a single room.