Warner Music sees Asia as the driving force mobile music growth

SINGAPORE, Oct 16, 2006 (AFP) - Asia is now the driving force behind demand for mobile music services which will make up for lost revenue by telecom firms in their voice-only services, a US recording label Warner Music said Monday.





South Korea and Japan dominate the mobile music market and Asia Pacific holds the largest market for services to download music onto cellular phones with sales worth 3.



2 billion US dollars in 2005.

"South Korea, as many of you know, is perhaps the most advanced country in the world for music along with Japan," said Alejandro Zubillaga, executive vice president of Warner Music Group.

"Consumers there spend more than twice as much on mobile music as they do on physical products," he said in a speech at a telecommunications conference.

For telecom operators facing declining average revenue per user (ARPU), providing subscribers with services to download music will become more important and Asia is the place to be, he said.

"In contrast to declining voice ARPU however, data-driven ARPU is on the rise...

the bottomline is that rich data services such as music and music related content will help drive this growth further and faster."

"Mobile music can clearly help you increase usage."