Android Music versus iTunes: Table Stakes

There's lots of activity in the mobile music space at the moment. Spotify is preparing to launch in the United States and Nokia is rolling out multiple new "Comes With Music territories. But Google is lijely the most significant of the new entrants.

Not that music stores per se are that big a deal on the revenue front. Of course the music download store has never been the end game. The margins are so small that the a la carte download store only has any value as a means to an end, a way to add a sticky application and increase device value, for example, as well as to provide an e-commerce platform, to a lesser extent.

Android Music versus iTunes: When Open Isn’t Quite As Open As It Might Appear | Forrester Blogs:

How do People Use Their Smart Phones?

The Nokia Smartphone 360 survey shows that mobile users spend an average of 48 minutes per day on their smart phones, says iLocus. About 12 percent of the time is spent on making voice calls while messaging consumes 37 percent of user time; multimedia 16 percent; PIM 14 percnet; Games four percent; Browsing eight percent.

Browsing accounts for 72 percent of data traffic while entertainment accounted for four percent of the traffic in 2006. That pattern changed in 2007, though, with entertainment grabbing a sharply greater share of time spent with the mobile device.

In 2007, browsing represented 44 percent of time spent; entertainment 26 percent. Messaging increased from 11 percent of the data traffic to 21 percent year over year.

Nokia assumes that messaging traffic increased because users were sending photos using multimedia messaging service, while entertainment traffic increased due to increased podcasting.

Usage also peaks at different times of day. Music usage peaks at around 8 am and then again at 6 pm, suggesting music gets used when users are commuting. Voice usage peaks around 4 pm to 5 pm. Browsing peaks at around 10 pm.

Obviously mobiles are being used at home in the evening for browsing, and the question is why the home PC is not used instead.

Nokia assumes that the mobile phone is using Wi-Fi to download Internet content. According to Nokia, podcasting also is a later-in-the-evening activity.

About 47 percent of outbound calls are made on the move. About 29 percent of outbound calls are made from home. About 24 percent of outbound calls are made from the office.

About 35 percent of packet data is consumed when users are on the move. About 44 percent is used at home and 21 percent is used at the office.

Data traffic use increased from 6 mbytes a month in 2006 to 14 mbytes a month in 2007.

Wi-Fi or wireless LAN connections accounted for 31 percent of data use while mobile access accounted for the rest of use. WiFi sessions were longer with an average session duration of 4.5 minutes.

About 31 percent of the respondents used instant messaging. Some 38 percent of respondents listen to music at least once a week. Some 47 percent of the panellists say that mobile is now their primary music player.

About 59 percent are regular gamers. "Snake" and "Card Deck" are the most popular games. About 81 percent of users regularly use browsers, and the typical user visits two sites a week.

Making War on Your Customers a Mistake. Duh!

Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music CEO, says mobile service providers should not make the mistake the music industry did. "We used to fool ourselves,' he says. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was."

"We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding," he says. "And of course we were wrong."

"We inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won," he says.

Mobile operators risk making the same mistake with their music services, he says.

"The sad truth is that most of what consumers are being offered today on the mobile platform is boring, banal and basic," Bronfman says. "People want a more interesting form of mobile music content."

"They want it to be easy to buy with a single click," he adds. "And they want access to it, quickly and easily, wherever they are, 24/7."