Digital Music Will Rock the World: Soundbuzz

Digital music content provider, Soundbuzz, has revealed its conclusions about digital music trends in India. According to the Soundbuzz Music Analysis (Digital and Physical), in 2007, digital music and more specifically mobile music, will surpass physical music in sales in India. India is poised to be the second country in the world, in this respect.

The analysis reveals that Mobile music growth will be fueled by formats in addition to ringtones and will include trackback tones, full track audio and video downloads. However, online music is likely to remain minimal for the next three year period.

Soundbuzz also concludes that globally, online and mobile sales will represent more than 60% of all music retail sales by 2009. Ringtones are the dominant digital format in terms of sales and will continue to be so, through 2009. Recorded mobile music will also grow dramatically to $3.9 billion from 210 million in 2005, driven by truetones, ringback tones and full tracks.

Moreover, it concludes that Asia will generate more than one third of all digital music sales, globally in 2009.

In India, the music industry will continue to grow, from INR 1,450 crore in 2005, to INR 4,100 crore in 2009. This growth will be fueled by mobile music and will account for 88% of the music industry's revenues.

Sudhanshu Sarronwalla, Ceo, Soundbuzz said, "Illegal Peer to Peer file sharing websites are a major issue for the music Industry, worldwide. In India, the issue is a lesser evil, because of the low bandwidth and broadband problems. However, with the advancements in this area now, we have to take care in order not to let it get out of hand, at this stage. We will tackle the problem in two ways; by ensuring availability of legal music download sites and by enforcing the law. Fact is that Internet surfers will definitely use legal music download sites, if they are readily available. Plus there is the question of quality. iTunes is an example of how legal download site are flourishing, despite the menace of piracy."

He also mentioned that radio on mobile devices as well as Internet radio will help push the digital music industry forward.