Digital Lifescapes

Recorded music is the most mature segment of mobile entertainment. Given the current spread across competing platforms, it's clear that online digital distribution is now the core of that industry. And, when offered a choice, fewer people will opt to own copies of music recordings. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, revenue generated through advertising-based online music streaming is now forecast to exceed $1 Billion by 2017 -- that's up from $782 Million in 2015. However, the key music industry leaders are now attempting to slow this transition and exclude full-featured freemium services, with current offerings instead being restricted to basic 'radio' style features. Regardless, ad-based revenues are still expected to see strong growth as more people migrate to music streaming services, including some evolving offerings such as Google Play Music. The Juniper study found that while ad-based freemium services will continue to entice a ...

Historically, the Grammys event is an annual celebration of songwriter and performing artist accomplishments during the course of the year. It's not usually an event where copyright reform becomes the focal point, or where honorees air their concerns about the state of the music industry. But times have changed. The transition to digital content production and online streaming distribution has disrupted various parts of the entertainment sector -- with the overall recorded music market still adapting to the big changes that have impacted the prior status-quo. The consumption of music on mobile devices is the key trend to watch. It's a huge market. Strategy Analytics says that the total global mobile music market value will grow from $12.8 billion in 2014 to reach $21.3 billion by 2021. New growth will be driven by the combined effect of the dominance of mobile music streaming -- both paid subscription and ad-funded free listening -- in all markets, the transition from phy...

Once again, the recorded music industry is at a pivotal juncture in their evolution. The recent recording artist royalty disputes with Spotify has intensified concern about the economic viability of streaming music subscription services. The latest market study by Strategy Analytics found that despite continuous growth in adoption of music streaming services, current providers are having difficulty turning music streaming into a profit. Given the ongoing financial challenges with this business model, the resolution is still unclear. "Technology is evolving and changing the way consumers discover, listen to, share, and interact with music, but it is also a significant factor in the decline of music industry revenues. Many artists feel they are under compensated by streaming services, but as currently structured the underlying economics won't support higher royalty payments by these service, particularly for free ad-supported services" said Leika Kawasaki, analyst at St...

The competition for market share in the mobile cloud arena will escalate during 2015. The cloud content and services markets -- enabled by the ubiquity of smartphones and media tablets -- are now the battleground between major content providers, device manufacturers and internet service providers. ABI Research recently conducted a worldwide market study of several key growth segments of cloud content and services -- including gaming, music, social networking and search. Overall, revenues in these important digital content ecosystems are expected to grow 122 percent from 2014 to 2020 and approach $320 billion, according to the ABI Research assessment. Search and Social are each led by dominant international companies, with Google capturing 60 percent of 2013 search revenue while Facebook has 55 percent of 2013 social networking revenue. ABI believes that while some regional differences exist, these positions should remain relatively defensible for the foreseeable future. The g...

Across a variety of formats, digital music is undoubtedly the most mature segment of mobile entertainment. Mobile devices are uniquely positioned to become a key platform in the music industry, given their ubiquity, connectivity and continual presence with the end-user. That being said, the music industry itself continues to be plagued with difficulties, particularly as far as recorded music is concerned. Juniper Research found that the digital music industry will experience slow growth in revenue over the next 5 years, growing from $12.3 billion this year to $13.9 billion in 2019. The latest global market study also found that a strong performance in the robust streamed music sector will largely be offset by decline in revenues from legacy services -- such as mobile ringtones and ringback tones. Streaming Music in the Mobile Cloud  According to the market study findings, the worldwide digital music market will be characterized by consumer migration to cloud based services...

There have been many attempts to define cloud computing over the years. The abstract notion of something being placed in a 'cloud' somewhere on the Internet can be puzzling. Regardless, for mainstream consumers, the cloud brings with it a level of flexibility unmatched by anything that came before it. In particular, where broadband service providers have established ecosystems of products, the cloud enables seamless interaction, which in turn has raised the bar in terms of what consumers expect from products today -- although most consumers are unaware of it, this convenience is driven by the cloud. Juniper Research forecasts that the number of unique consumers accessing cloud-based services will exceed 3.6 billion by 2018, rising from an estimated 2.4 billion in 2013. The findings from their market study highlight that an expanding group of connected services within cloud-based storage, music and games will drive consumer demand over the next five years. Streaming Mus...

Fans of recorded music that are already paying for on-demand streaming services will total 29 million people worldwide at the end of 2013, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Accounting for 32 percent of the premium music service subscribers, Spotify is expected to close the year as the leader -- trailed by Deezer, SK Telecom’s MelOn, and rounded out by Rhapsody and Sony. Moreover, the high-growth cloud music services subscriber base is forecasted to reach 191 million by the end of 2018. "The past two years have seen a remarkable international expansion of streaming as a distribution model, but in terms of its long-term potential we’re still only scratching the surface," said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI Research . That’s also something to stress when discussing the role of cloud music services as a potential source of recording artist income. At end-2013 the cumulative revenue from premium service subscriptions will amount to less than $5...

The forward-looking outlook for the savvy leaders in the progressive digital media industry is very bright. The mobile owning public is now aware that mobile devices can be used to perform tasks beyond voice and text -- in North America nearly 65 percent of mobile handsets were used to access mobile entertainment services in 2012; 75 percent were used to browse the Internet. In Western Europe the comparable figures were 47 percent and 65 percent respectively. Annual revenue generated from digital content delivered to mobile phones and media tablets is expected to increase by nearly $25 billion over the next three years, reaching $65 billion by 2016, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research . According to the study findings, growth would primarily be fueled by an upsurge in game, video and eBook purchases via tablet devices, allied to increased opportunity for content monetization via DCB (Direct Carrier Billing) on smartphones. Juniper observed that eBooks curre...

Across a variety of formats, music is undoubtedly the most mature segment of mobile entertainment. The global revenues from streamed music services on mobile devices are expected to rise by more than 40 percent to $1.7 billion, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. For the first time, these revenues will thereby overtake those generated by full-track downloads to mobile devices. The study observed that growth in premium service adoption was increasingly being driven by mobile network operator partnerships with service providers. In Europe, several operators have seen an uplift in spend amongst the mobile users, notably TeliaSonera in Sweden, which bundles Spotify with TV, mobile and fixed line services. Furthermore, such services are also gaining traction in Germany, where O2 offers simfy and T‑Mobile has recently introduced Spotify. However, the most significant growth has come in the U.S. market, which is poised to overtake South Korea this year as the lea...

While the North American market for mobile network subscription is considered saturated, there's still significant handset upgrade activity. comScore released data that reported the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone marketplace during the three month average period ending November 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.9 percent market share. Google Android continued to lead among smartphone platforms, accounting for 53.7 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple iOS secured 35 percent of the market. For the three-month average period ending in November, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 1.2 percentage points). Apple ranked second with 18.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.5 percent share, Motorola with 10.4 percent and HTC with 5.9 percent. 123.3 million people in th...

The recorded music industry has experienced a major loss of value during the last decade, primarily due to the legacy companies choosing a slow and painful path to transition their business models and thereby embrace digital media distribution. That being said, lately they appear to be more in sync with consumer demand. The global digital music market is expected to grow at 15 percent annually, reaching nearly $22.5 billion by 2017, according to the latest market study by Ovum. Revenue is being boosted by streaming music subscription services, which are predicted to show a strong compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent -- much of that upside will be due to bundling partnerships with telecom service providers. New forecasts from Ovum reveal growth across most regions -- except North America and Europe, where mobile music is expected to decline by 5 to 7 percent (excluding unlicensed, non-music, and mobile subscriptions) as phone ring back tones fail to make up for the dec...

The American mobile communications ecosystem continues to evolve and expand, partly at the expense of the legacy wireline telecom segment -- as more attention is being directed towards this growth-oriented marketplace. comScore released the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending June 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.6 percent market share. Google Android continued to grow its share in the U.S. smartphone market, accounting for 51.6 percent of smartphone subscribers, meanwhile Apple captured just 32.4 percent. For the three-month average period ending in June, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 18.8 percent share. Apple ranking third with 15.4 percent of mobile subscribers (that's...

Market disruptions continue to upset the U.S. music recording industry. As a result, the changes have shrunk it in half in just over a decade, according to the latest market study by eMarketer. The legacy big media company's past experiments with digital media seemed promising, but they haven't generated enough revenue to stem losses from the sale of compact discs. Analysts now wonder if cloud-based music streaming services could revive the industry. Regardless, it's clear that the legacy music recording industry must reduce its traditional high-cost operating model -- in order to be competitive with low-cost indie performing artists that sell their content direct to online distributors and/or consumers. Can the old guard survive, given this scenario? "The short answer is maybe," said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. "Key trends are pointing in the right direction, including positive technology adoption forecasts, a profusion of social sharing ac...

comScore released data that outlines the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone service industry, during the three month average period ending February 2012. Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile phone service subscribers. They found Samsung to be the top mobile handset manufacturer overall with 25.6 percent market share. Google Android continued to grow its share in the U.S. smartphone market -- crossing the 50-percent threshold in February to capture a majority share for the first time in its history. For the three-month average period ending in February, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 19.4 percent share. Apple captured the #3 ranking in February with 13.5 percent of mobile subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points), followed by Motorola at 12.8 percent. HTC moved into the #5 position in February at 6.3 percent (u...

Online video consumption reached record highs during 2011. The last month of the year also ended on a high note. comScore released data showing that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December of 2011 for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer. That same U.S. Internet audience viewed a combined total of 43.5 billion videos. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in December with 157.2 million unique viewers, while VEVO ranked second with 53.7 million. Yahoo! Sites ranked third with 53.3 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.8 million and Facebook.com with 42 million. More than 43 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 21.9 billion. The average viewer watched 23.2 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.9 hours) and Hulu (3 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten propert...

Multifaceted mobile devices, such as smartphones, are now pervasive in many markets. Moreover, these coexist with various other types of mobile computing or communication devices. The trend in developed markets is clear -- consumers are likely purchasing these devices with specific primary use-case scenarios in mind. Whether that preferred device is a laptop PC, smartphone, portable media player (PMPs), or media tablet depends on many factors. According to the findings from the latest market study by NPD In-Stat, they have been able to identify survey respondent's defining attitudes and behaviors toward these smart mobile devices. One key finding was that the size of the screen tends to create an optimal use case for the device. Specifically, larger screen devices seem to fulfill productivity needs while smaller screen devices tend to satisfy communication or entertainment needs. "The majority of tablet owners have a screen size between 9 and 11 inches -- a size optimiz...

New product announcements and service demos at CES confirmed what many pundits predicted, a variety of mobile devices -- media tablets and smartphones, in particular -- and digital media streamed from the cloud was a pervasive theme. Indeed, the future upside opportunities for mobile content look very promising. According to the latest market study by eMarketer , ad-supported mobile content revenues will exceed $1 billion by 2015 -- with the fastest growth coming from advertising support for mobile video. Last year, U.S. mobile video revenues from advertising reached just $37.5 million, but by 2015 advertisers will spend $213.6 million on ad placements that support mobile video content. Regardless, that's still lower than the amounts spent on advertising against mobile games and mobile music -- estimated at $65.3 million and $181.4 million, respectively in 2011. Both are forecast to grow to $269.1 million and $591.5 million, respectively, by 2015. Looking forward, eMarke...

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending October 2011. The market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers. The significant take-away for me was that the Apple iPhone high-growth upside seems to have stalled in America. Where the platform ecosystem market share gains end in 2011 we likely be a key market indicator for the 2012 outlook. That being said, most industry analysts still predict a continuation of the Google Android upside, at this point in time. For the three-month average period ending in October, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 20.6 percent share and Motorola with 13.6 percent share. Apple strengthened its position at #4 with 10.8 percent share of mobile subscribers (up just 1.3 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.6 per...

comScore released data reporting the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending August 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.3 percent market share. Google Android continued to gain ground in the smartphone market reaching 43.7 percent market share. For the three-month average period ending in August, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.5 percentage points from the prior three-month period), followed by LG with 21.0 percent share and Motorola with 14.0 percent share. Apple strengthened its position at #4 with 9.8 percent share of mobile subscribers (up 1.1 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 7.1 percent share. 84.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months...

Almost three quarters (73 percent) of mobile phone service subscribers -- using both smartphones and other types of devices -- in the United States use them to visit social networking sites daily, sometimes more than once each day. This latest finding comes from a recent online survey of 2,000 people, conducted in March 2011 by ABI Research . The survey respondents were asked a wide range of questions about how they use their mobile devices and associated applications. All respondents owned at least one mobile phone, smartphone or media tablet. ABI practice director Neil Strother says, "Operators and brands, take note: your customers are here in droves. Users like multiple modes of social interaction." Survey respondents say the mobile phone (or smartphone) provides sufficient access to the activities they like doing with social networks: viewing content, sending media, and updating profiles. In fact, the phone is a preferred device for doing a number of activities ...