Report: Most mobile music is sideloaded onto handsets, 83% of music sideloaded to mobile phones

While manufacturers and carriers are gearing up to offer mobile-music download services, in hopes that wireless subscribers will pay to download music onto their handsets, a new report from M:Metrics shows that most people are sideloading their music onto their mobile phones (tranferring music onto the device via data cable, WiFi, or Bluetooth connection – bypassing their carrier-sanctioned mobile download).

A full 83% of mobile music was sideloaded onto cellphones in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. M:Metrics also found that the second most common way of getting music onto mobile phones was to share it between friends. Over-the-air downloading of content straight to the music-capable phone was the least favored method in all regions, with the US and Spain excepted.

It seems that mobile music-listeners in the US were much more likely to download music directly onto their handsets – 18.3% in the US, compared with 10% in the UK and 8.6% in France

Here’s some other mobile-related data comparing the US and the EU:
– Accessed News/Info via Browser: US 12.6 percent, EU 9.1 percent
– Played, Downloaded Mobile Game: US 9.1 percent, EU 8.7 percent
– Watched video: US 4.2 percent, EU 5.1 percent
– Accessed Downloaded Application: US 4.2 percent, EU 2.6 percent
– Sent/Received Photos or Videos: US 20.5 percent, EU 27.5 percent
– Received SMS Ads: US 20.6 percent, EU 53.3 percent

So, it seems the US has finally set the curve in terms of mobile-usage – us Yanks sure love our over-the-air downloads and mobile-data access.

We sure don’t download music onto our mobile phones, we sideload it – aside from the occasional iPhone-destined iTunes download.

What do you prefer? Over-the-air downloading of music or sideloading (regardless of how you acquired said music – P2P much?)?

[Via: MocoNews]