Digital Music Market in Asia

I was surprised to learn that digital music in Asia is as large of a market as here in this Variety article. But once I thought about it, it made sense. In China and Asia, teenagers in particular use their mobiles phone all the time. It’s part of their identity. The music they play on their phones as the ringback or ringtone is also something they change all the time. China mobile and the other service providers support their mobile music download service with a prominent advertising campaign.

So while CDs are mostly pirated here, the more you push mobile music here in Asia, the stronger the legitimate music market will become. So it seems to me that Apple should be pushing their iphone very strongly in Asia. It makes sense as the killer app on the iphone is in fact the itunes software. And Asians, by far more than any other geographic population, download using mobile phones. According to this article, China accounts for 80% of the music download market. I would have thought South Korea or even Japan. But once again, I think the sheer population size makes China the default market leader.

I’d be interested to learn more about the mobile music download firms here in China and learning what opportunities exist. Anyone have related info to share?