Mobile Music Japan

NTT DoCoMo pioneered the mobile music market by introducing polyphonic ringtones (Chaku-Melody or Chaku-Melo) on i-Mode in 1999. Polyphonic ringtones were a tremendous success, and a vibrant market for mobile music started to develop in Japan. Today mobile music in Japan represents a totally new Billion Dollar per year market for the benefit of consumers, artists, composers and the music industry. In the meantime, mobile music has become a substantial fraction of the music distribution market in Japan, replacing traditional music distribution methods such as CDs and DVDs and tapes.
The rapid development of this new market also allows opportunities for several newcomers, freshly founded companies, several of which have in the meantime completed very successful IPOs on stock exchanges in Japan. Traditional corporations, such as record companies and technology companies, as well as new players and young companies together are creating and driving the vibrant new music market.
Technological advances and improvements in the sound reproduction have been introduced constantly since 1999, and several new services and markets have been introduced, such as "Melody call", which might be called "reverse ringtones".

Complete Report Availability

Mobile Music Japan Report ( pdf file) is immediately available from the APPCRAFT.org Website at http://www.appcraft.org/shop.php?pid=1&kid=36

The present report describes the development, structure and trends of the mobile music market in Japan. The report also presents several of the mobile music market participants, and presents market data and quantitative estimations for the music market size and trends in Japan.
This market reports and earlier versions of the present report have been used by major global telecom carriers and equipment manufacturers from US, EU and Japan, investment bankers, equipment manufacturers, service providers, University students and professors and many professionals from all over the world. The Government of Finland has engaged us to advise on the research funding strategy for mobile services, and the Harvard Business School (HBS) is using one of our reports for research and teaching.