Mobile music streaming service are expected to grow by more than 40% globally this year.
Juniper Research’s white paper from its Mobile Music report, published in April, forecast streamed mobile music revenues this year would hit $US1.73 billion.
The white paper forecast that major players such as Apple and Google would seek to capitalise on demand for personalised music services to challenge leading current providers such as Spotify and Pandora.
“We also believe that attractively priced offerings from such players could stimulate further demand.”
The market for streamed services was expected to grow by more than 40% globally, Juniper said, partly driven by the increasing alliances between network operators and third party players.
Western Europe accounted for the largest share of any region, but the largest national market was the United States, Juniper said, overtaking South Korea.
In terms of trends within the mobile music space, one was that personalisation was key to combat on-board FM radios. Another was that while the mobile music industry was seeing an increase in freemium services, such as Spotify, where a user could take a free trial and upgrade if desired, revenues from pay per download models would increase steadily, due to the business models of the big players, such as Apple, Juniper said.
“Nevertheless…revenues from streamed services are likely to see significantly higher growth in most markets.”
