Eighty per cent of top handsets support music

EIGHT OUT of the world's Top Ten best-selling mobile phones in September featured music-playing technology, according to a survey of sales on six continents and over 50 countries carried out for Krusell.

Furthermore,the latest figures from IMS Research show that mobile phone sales will top 960 million units in 2006 and over 1 billion in 2007. The net result is that mobile phones are definitely eating into the market share of dedicated music players such as the eponymous iPOD from Apple.

Providing the music players in the handsets supplied by LG , Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, Nokia and Sony Ericsson is software supplied by little-known specialist, Groove Mobile. One advantage is that Grove's client software runs under Java, Symbian or Microsoft Windows Mobile.

The Groove Mobile music player comes pre-installed on many handsets but can also be downloaded over the air. The company reckons that increased efficiency in compression and transmission has meant that more people are now willing to download tracks over 3G networks.

It's not just the handsets either. Groove's technology is behind music stores run by mobile operators in the United States, Canada, the UK, the European Union and Australasia. The company even operates its own WAP Music Store.

With so many handsets capable of playing music tracks why aren't artists releasing tracks on SD cards, the INQ wonders? µ

L'INQ
Groove Mobile