Full-Track Downloads Taking Off, Apparently

Remember that concept for downloading mobile music that we kept hearing about? Ya, you remember. Well, it seems these puppies are really start to move out the door; or onto the phone, rather.

A new research report says that full-track mobile downloads increased 20 times in 2005 (via Abiro) over the previous year, with global revenues leaping from $12.4 million to $251 million. Let’s focus on that, rather than the ridiculous prediction that the number will be $9.3 billion in 2011 (since there’s no telling how they got it).

First, let’s discount Japan. KDDI’s Chaku-Uta Full service has been growing like crazy for a couple years now. Last year, it did about 29 million downloads, finishing with a rate of about 10 million tracks per month. Songs cost about 300 yen (about $2.50), so it accounted for about a quarter of the world’s total. And it sold less than 1 million tracks in 2004, so its growth outpaced the world as a whole as well. Source: MobHappy

[tags]downloads,full-track downloads,chaku-uta full service,global revenues[/tags]