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China's digital music market to improve steadily, iResearchBEIJING, Oct 19, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- China's digital market is ex pected to continue the steady development in 2010 and realize a market revenue of 2.15 billion yuan in 2011, according to iResearch, the mar ket research company. The industry's revenue is estimated to hit 1.79 billion yuan in 2009, up 8.2 percent year on year. The growth rate has dropped slight ly from 8.8 percent in 2008, probably due a slowdown in the wireless m usic business section, the revenue of which accounts for more than 90 percent of the industry's total. Chart 1 shows the Chinese digital music market's revenues from 2007 to 2008, and the estimated figures from 2009 to 2011, with statistics from iReserach. The wireless music business is believed to have left the period of high-speed expansion behind it, and is entering the mature phase o f modest improvements. Besides this, telecom carriers have toughened r egulations and management in the wireless music business, which has sh runk the income of many wireless music service providers. However, the market is expected to enjoy steady improvement fro m 2010 to 2011. First, strong consumer demand is expected to boost the in dustry. Although the bulk of the industry's revenue comes from the wir eless music section, most consumers have got used to enjoying digital music services from the Internet, many of which are free. More than 90 percent of consumers choose to enjoy music f rom the Internet. The proportion of netizens -- habitual users of the Internet -- is much higher than for the traditional outlets of CDs and cassettes, and the emerging channel, mobile Internet, as is shown in Chart 2 below: The popularity of online music services will benefit, both dire ctly and indirectly, online digital music service providers by chargin g users and advertisers. Secondly, wireless music services have many potential use rs. Currently, mobile phones users, especially mobile netizens, are ma jor users of wireless music services. The population of mobile phone u sers and mobile netizens are both growing. In 2008, has 640 million mobile phone users, up 17.2 percent y ear on year. Among them, more than 100 million were wireless netizens. By the end of the second quarter of 2009, the number mobile pho ne users was 690 million, and the figure is estimated to enjoy a growt h rate exceeding 10 percent this year. Chart 3 shows the growth of mobile netizen numbers from 2 007 to 2008, and the estimated figures for 2009 to 2012. Thirdly, telecom operators value developments of the wire less music business. With the ongoing development of , wireless music has become a major battlefield for 's three carriers. China Mobile (0941.HK; CHL.NYSE) strengthened the management of its central music platform, improving its ability to enforce copyrigh t and promoting copyrighted music products. China Telecom (0728.HK; CHA.NYSE) launched a "Love Music" platf orm, combining digital music services including colorful ring tones, m usic downloads, online listening, music information, and online search ing. Besides this, it has cooperated with mobile phone producers to de velop music handset products. China Unicom (0762.HK; 600050.SH; CHU.NYSE) also designed music services for mobile phones. |