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Europeans Using Multimedia Phones

Europeans who own cell phones equipped with an MP3 player are four times more likely to use their phone to listen to music than their American counterparts, according to a report from market research firm Telephia. The survey found that 14 percent of European wireless subscribers now own a music phone; of these, 36 percent listen to music on their music phones, while the same is true for just 8 percent of Americans with music phones.

"The advanced infrastructure and the higher availability of music-capable devices in Europe are key factors behind the bigger growth in adoption. The U.S. market is still waiting for higher bandwidth networks that would support faster full track music downloads," said Telephia vice president Kanishka Agarwal.

The study also tracked the most popular music phone models, and found the Nokia 6230 leading among Europeans with a 26.6 percent market share, followed by the Samsung SGH-D500 (11.5 percent), Sony Ericsson K700 (9.6 percent), Nokia 6630 (7 percent) and Sony Ericsson K750 (3.7 percent). In the U.S. market, the Motorola V710 led with 22 percent of the market, followed by the Motorola MPX200 (17 percent), Handspring Treo 650 (16.8 percent), Sony Ericsson Z500 (7.9 percent) and Sony Ericsson S700
(7.6 percent).

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