eMarketer reports on survey data collected in March by B2X Care solutions, investigating how consumer ages 16-65 use their smartphones. The report is slanted toward online map use. But we noticed that music use was at the same level in the original research.
Fifty-two percent of respondents report using their phones for music. That activity can be of several types — e.g. personalized online radio like Pandora or iTunes Radio; on-demand music services like Spotify and Rhapsody; music collections stored in the phone.
However better it could be defined, a metric indicating that more than half the population uses phones for music plays into a major industry trend. At RAIN Summit West, keynoter Jason Calacanis ended his “State of Media” presentation by holding up his phone and intoning, “This is the only thing that matters. This is the only thing that matters. This is the only thing that matters.”
Research about mobile use for music also intersects parallel revenue studies. Last month eMarketer projected that mobile ad revenue would surpass broadcast radio and print in 2014, and widen its advantage for years to come.