Friday, October 17, 2003

Online music markets set to grow as defacto industry standards are being put in place

Online music markets set to grow as defacto industry standards are being put in place.

(PRWEB) April 1, 2004

Research and Markets announces the addition of this new report entitled "Electronic Online Music Market Opportunities, Strategies, and Forecasts, 2004 to 2009" to its offerings.

Music is universal. Everyone loves music. Doctors, lawyers, kids, moms, daddies, old people, babies, everyone loves music. Most people prefer listening to music than to making music. Online music downloading has been enormously popular. The industry has struggled a little to reign in illegal music downloading. That battle appears to have been won.

Online music markets are set to grow. By making music accessible and with prices set at a reasonable cost, defacto industry standards are being put in place. The defacto industry standards are coming from Apple, Real, and Microsoft. Service providers have 500,000 songs available for download. Celebrity play lists are one way of attracting listeners to a site. Online music providers feature exclusive tracks from major artists.

Online music single costs range from$.79 per song to $0.99 per song and $10 for an album. People can compose their own albums. As prices for songs drop to $0.29 per song by 2009, markets will achieve new growth. The music industry is set to take some lessons from the DVD industry. The broad acceptance of the Internet is creating demand for a means of music media content delivery. Digital music media is set to leverage the Internet transmission system. Consumer markets have accelerated demand for sophisticated communications transmission.

Apple has achieved a dominant position in the music industry by making downloadable music easily available. The company now accounts for one percent of the music industry revenue. It is well positioned to address growth in online music. Virtually all music will be downloaded by the end of the forecast period. Traditional retail outlets have failed to address the changes brought by the Internet. A market of downloadable music services includes Apple iTunes service. Hewlett Packard is including Apple music software on its machines. HP is positioned to help Apple expand its online music service beyond Macintosh computers to the PC market that uses Windows.

Rhapsody offers unrestricted access for file-sharing. People can listen to hundreds of songs or hundreds of albums for the same low price. That flexibility is helping make Rhapsody the leading online music service for consumers. Rhapsody has an unlimited listening approach designed to encourage subscribers to explore a wide variety of musical artists and styles. By paying $9.95 for unlimited access to the service library of 28,000 albums, people get a bargin.

Napster offers a free trial to get people to try the fee-based music downloading service. Napster features top streams. Napster offers access to tracks. Napster premium permits listening to and downloading 500,000 tracks for $10 per month.

500,000 songs from all genres of music are available. Napster seeks to make the digital music experience is easy and fun for all music consumers. Integrating popular devices with the service allows Napster to make it easy to move digital music onto a device directly. Napster focus is on consumer choice. The nucleus of the digital music service is positioned to ensure that music fans have high-quality experiences. Individual needs are a priority. Over 60 devices from a variety of manufacturers are available that support WMA. Napster provides music in WMA format. This gives Napster customers the combination of device, a music service, and a flexible, high quality music format. Markets at $359.1 million in 2003, are expected to be $14.7 billion by 2009.

Key Topics In This Report Include:

Online Music Markets Online Music Forecasts Revenue Model Restructuring Networks For Advanced Multimedia Services Information Sharing Between Different Environments Music Is Universal Streaming Media Segments Digital Online Music Standards Oktv® Child Health Controls Recording Industry Association Of America Ip Network Delay And Congestion Network Strategy Telecom Market Structure Challenge Of Broadband Media Hosting Operating System Focus On Media Delivery

Companies Profiled in this report include:

Market Leaders Online Music

Apple Computer

RealPlayer

Online Music Subscription Services

RealPlayer

Microsoft

Apple Computer

Online Music Advertising

Microsoft

Real Networks

Apple Computer

Other Market Participants BuyMusic. com Cisco

CNET Networks Hewlett Packard

Liquid Audio Liquid Digital Media

Loudeye Macromedia

Matsushita Electric Industrial MontVista Software

Music Choice Musicmatch

Music Now/Full Audio MP3.com

Music Net Roxio/Napster

Sonic Solutions Viewpoint

Wal-Mart Stores Zoran

For a complete index of this report click on http://www. researchandmarkets. com/reports/54569 (http://www. researchandmarkets. com/reports/54569)

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