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

Categories: Announcements, Research,
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 4:47 PM

M:Metrics most mobile music is sideloaded 83%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]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • hardmanb

    Just like previous unsuccessful carrier download services for music (and video will be similar)…people prefer sideloading for various reasons.

    With sideloading, you have music available on your desktop, multiple portable devices, home music/entertainment system, and you have a secure “backup” copy, when a cellphone is lost or its capacity forces deletion or sorting. Not to mention P2P and personal sharing convenience, or copying from your (or friends) CDs.

    Many of the carrier and cellphone manufacturers services will fail within the year. “If its not on iTunes…it doesn’t exist”. ITunes is showing the future for music, video, photo and data synchronization and future software sales.

  • Luisa

    How can i sign up for this website