Start waving the cigarette lighters and swaying side to side — the love affair between music fans and their cell phones is getting more intense. Phones with music capabilities will account for 54 percent of handset sales globally in five years, according to a report consulting firm Strategy Analytics Inc. The report suggests that we keep watching the growth of cellular music decks (CMDs), devices that deliver excellent sound quality and focus on music more than images.
Key takeaways from the report:
“MP3 is to remain a requisite format in the mobile market due to strengths in the wired broadband domain.
“Converged devices will account for 50 percent of music enabled device sales through 2006, as the technical challenges of MP3 support force it to devices with robust platforms.
“‘Sporadic Downloaders’ encompass the wider market opportunity in the long term. Tech savvy ‘Digital Musicphiles’ are already indicating critical feature ‘must haves’ for CMDs and music enabled feature phones.”
The report lands just a few weeks after the release of “Portable Media Centers,” handheld devices from Samsung and Creative Labs that run on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. They’re targeted to on-the-move consumers who want to play music, videos, movies and display digital photos on a single device.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is readying its answer to Apple’s iTunes. And Yahoo! just announced its intention to purchase digital music services company MusicMatch Inc. for approximately $160 million in cash.
This Chaser, a huge music fan, can’t wait to see (and hear) if the device manufacturers and music services hit the right notes or end up in the cut-out bin.
