China Mobile’s Music Promise, And Challenges

China’s mobile operators are playing a central role in forging a legal digital music industry — as opposed to the huge, illegal, pirated one that already exists — through their sales of legit ringtones and other handset-friendly music services. But they still have a ways to go before capitalizing on the biggest ticket item of them all: full music downloads. In its half-year earnings report in August, China Mobile noted that that the value-added service that had the most revenue growth was its