News
7.5m Groovy tunes
Tim Green Jan 8 2007, 11:30am
Groove Mobile delivered 7.5 million full track music downloads in the last quarter of 2006.
The US based mobile music provider powers services for over a dozen operators across North America, Europe and New Zealand. They include Bell Canada, 3 UK and Sprint and boast a collective potential subscriber base of over 85 million.
Adam Sexton, chief marketing officer of Grrove Mobile, attributed much of the success to the surge in popularity of music-enabled phones. "Robust sales of music handsets are driving mobile music downloads," he said. "Around the world consumers are embracing the music phone as their preferred player, and using it to download songs directly."
Groove services, which include P2P sharing, personalised music recommendations, streaming radio and more, are compatible with the ‘big five’ manufacturers’ device range.
The figures reflect a buoyant digital music market that is starting to reverse the recent decline in overall annual revenues.
According to a new report from Portio Research, annual sales of digital and offline music are predicted to reach $38.8 billion by 2011. It also says over half of the one billion mobile handsets shipped in 2007 will have music playing capabilities, and that music phones will outnumber standalone MP3 players by approximately 5 to 1 in 2012.
As these conclusions were emerging the mobile handset sector was rushing out still more devices. As reported by Mobile Entertainment earlier today, Sony Ericsson has added another entry-level Walkman phone, the W200, which can store up to 37 full length tracks.
