Music Downloads To Phones Dominate Japanese Market

Macworld: [by James Pearce] Mobile phone downloads in Japan (including complete songs and ring tone melodies) totaled 108.9 million songs during the first half of the year and were worth ¥13.6 billion according to figures from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). "In contrast, legal music downloads from the Internet to devices like portable music players totaled 2.2 million songs and were worth ¥538.8 million during the same period, the RIAJ said...Those figures mean cell phone downloads accounted for 98 percent of the market by song and 96 per cent by value during the first half."
That's a pretty significant difference and is likely to give fuel to those predicting mobile phones will soon replace portable music players, although the Japanese market is different from other markets in a number of ways (after being castigated by Wireless Watch Japan I won't hazard a guess as to why that is).
However, it should be noted that the mobile market in Japan has a greater proportion of songs downloaded than of revenue -- so I infer that the songs on mobile phones are at least as cheap as those sold on the internet. Still, the figures don't include those of the recently opened iTunes store, which was a run-away success. (via Ringtonia)
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