Ownership of 'music phones' is racing ahead in the US and Western Europe, according to new research from M:Metrics.
The UK boasts the highest penetration of music phones (defined as phones that are capable of music storage and playback), at 40 per cent, followed by Germany (34 per cent), Italy (32 per cent), Spain (29 per cent) and France (23 per cent).While the US lags these markets, with only 17 per cent of mobile subscribers owning a music phone, it has shown an impressive 385 per cent increase between 2006 and January 2007.
Music usage is considerably higher on music-optimised phones - 67 per cent of Sony Ericsson W850i owners in the UK listen to 'sideloaded 'music on their phone, compared with only 28 per cent of overall musicphone owners.
In fact, Walkman handsets dominate the UK market in terms of the percentage of owners sideloading them with music - the W850i tops the pile with 67 per cent of owners sideloading, followed by the W810i (59 per cent) and W800i (52 per cent). Nokia's N80 is slightly behind at 51 per cent and the N73 at 48 per cent.
In the US, Motorola SLVR L7 or LG Chocolate owners who also use standalone digital music players are 60 per cent more likely than average to use these phones as their primary music players.
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The percentage of total subscribers who sideload music onto their phones ranges from a high of 12.2 per cent in the UK to 10 per cent in Italy, 8.8 per cent in Spain, 8.4 per cent in Germany, 4.4 per cent in France and 2.9 per cent in the US.
M:Metrics analyst Jen Wu said: “There are plenty of musicphones which can play music, but a small handful of these, designed and marketed specifically for music playback, is accelerating awareness and interest in hybrid phone/music players."
