Mobile Music: The Good & The Not-So-Bad

The NPD Group has released the results of a survey on mobile music, with some very promising results (of course, different surveys have been giving different results, but this one is good).
According to the report 20% of all consumers surveyed are interested in purchasing an MP3-capable phone (56% amongst teens) which is a pretty good figure considering the size of the mobile phone market. Only 14%indicated an interest in replacing an MP3 player with a mobile handset. Three quarters of the people interested in buying an MP3-capable phone are willing to pay a premium, although only an average of $25 extra. I don’t know how much it costs to put an MP3-player into a phone along with the hardware to get good quality sound, so I don’t know whether this is a reasonable evaluation…it’s not a straight question anyway — I doubt you’ll be able to find handsets that are exactly the same except for having an MP3 player, so it’s more of an indication to carriers and handset manufacturers over how to price the MP3-player in the overall bundle.
Over half the respondents preferred to transfer their music from their PC to their phone, but 37% said they’d prefer to download music directly to their phones over the mobile network. These latter people are willing to pay a premium for the songs, and “the optimal price point for mobile music downloads is $1.75, compared to the typical $.99 in the PC digital music domain”.
Also… “Since last year, the number of ringtone purchasers has nearly doubled, from nine to 17 percent, with another 12 percent expressing an interest in purchasing ringtones within the next year”. This compares to 25% expressing an interest in ringback tones.
Related stories:
–Apple’s Jobs Warns On Music Pricing
–Will the Music Cellphones Sweeping Japan Play in the U.S.?
–Sprint To Launch RealNetworks’ Rhapsody on Mobiles
The Mobile Music section is sponsored by mobZilla