No iTunes required for 2.1 billion mobile music downloads

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Researchers tell us that, in the UK market, there were some 1.5 billion 'legal' music downloads last year. That's covering all bases, different devices and download services, but discounting the illegal file sharing trade. The Goddess alone knows how big the figure would be if you factored in dodgy P2P business and back bedroom file swapping. However, the point is that one research firm, TNS Technology, now reckons that it doesn't matter as the real big numbers will come from mobile phone music downloads via the Sony Ericsson and Nokia portals. How does 2.1 billion downloads of 'mobile music' in the UK grab you?

The idea that partnerships such as that of Sony Ericsson with Omnifone and PlayNow Plus, together with services such as the Nokia 'Comes With Music' all you can eat unlimited music downloads will revolutionise the music market when they go live real soon now.

Indeed, TNS Technology research suggests that more than a quarter of all consumers are keen to adopt such a system of unlimited mobile music downloads. Which is good news for the mobile phone networks and bad news for the CD business which is already feeling the squeeze from computer based digital downloads, mainly thanks to the undeniable presence of Apple and iTunes in the musical marketplace. Some 45 percent of people who currently but CDs have said they would buy less if the mobile music schemes take off.

While Apple is probably happy enough with its mobile music downloading offerings, other computer-based services might also feel the pinch. A bigger pinch than the CD folk in fact, with 47 percent of those people buying music for the desktop saying they would reduce the amount they download as a result of buying via their mobile phones.

Perhaps the most surprising figure to emerge though, is the one which suggests that people currently downloading pirated music, or at least 38 percent of them, would pirate less.

The TNS survey involved over 1000 consumers between the ages of 16 and 64, with that 2.1 billion number being arrived at by multiplying the number who expressed an interest in signing up to mobile music services by the average number of tracks they would download each month and then scaling that total up so as to apply to the entire UK population.

The Managing Director of TNS Technology, Amy Cashman, says “This research clearly underscores the powerful latent consumer demand for mobile music availability - which if successfully fulfilled will transform the way that people buy music as well as reducing illegal downloads. No doubt the industry will be watching closely to see if Nokia and Sony Ericsson will be able to move the goalposts substantially forward.”

Dani AI

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As notes, the late‑2008 headlines about “mobile music” were backed by real product pushes (Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow™ plus with Omnifone, and Nokia’s Comes With Music) that promised large volumes of downloads and built‑in “keep” features. Sony’s PlayNow press release and contemporary coverage explain how vendors tried to bundle unlimited downloads with handsets. (See also early reporting on Nokia’s Comes With Music and the PlaysForSure DRM choices.)
(https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/24/sony.ericsson.walkman.phone.music) (https://www.wired.com/2007/12/nokias-subscrib/)

Those industry moves met two predictable gaps between headline intent and real behaviour. First, survey extrapolations of “interest” into population‑wide download totals routinely overstate uptake — stated intentions often do not translate into action (the well‑documented intention–behaviour gap). (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230821783_Intention-Behavior_Relations_A_Conceptual_and_Empirical_Review) Second, technical and business frictions mattered: DRM schemes, handset‑lock restrictions, operator billing models and limited carrier roll‑outs reduced convenience and portability, which damped mass adoption; Nokia later wound the programme back in many markets. (https://www.computerworld.com/article/1461616/nokia-phones-will-no-longer-come-with-music.html)

The market that followed did not collapse into handset‑tied full‑track downloads. Instead, on‑demand streaming grew rapidly and became the dominant digital model by the mid‑2010s — IFPI’s 2016 analysis shows digital/streaming rising to a larger share than physical sales — and some B2B platform players struggled (Omnifone entered administration in 2016). (https://www.musikindustrie.de/presse/presseinformationen/ifpi-global-music-report-2016-veroffentlicht) (https://www.accountancyage.com/2016/05/09/leonard-curtis-appointed-administrator-to-digital-music-firm-omnifone/)

Short historical takeaway: the 2008 projections captured genuine consumer appetite, and vendors built interesting technical workarounds (keep‑favourite features, PlayReady/PlaysForSure licensing), but they underestimated how important cross‑device portability, simple billing and on‑demand streaming economics would become. For readers checking contemporary claims, primary contemporaneous sources above document the product promises, the rights/DRM choices, and how market trends shifted toward streaming.

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