Cell Phones As Portable Music Players

FMQB Reports: "This week in Europe, mobile phone company Vodafone launched a new mobile phone music download service that is powered by Musicwave. The company is confident that droves of people across Europe will soon find it natural to use their cell phone as a music store and portable music player, but they’re not so sure it will catch on in the U.S…"

"Obviously, a lot more people use cell phones than use iPods or other portable digital music players. But the U.S. market for digital music remains dominated by computer-based programs. A handful of music services for cell phones have been launched, notes CNet, but these largely involve downloading music to a PC and then transferring it to a phone. But in Europe and Asia, cellular carriers and record labels see Internet-connected, multimedia phones as a more advanced Walkman that will make it easy for people to impulse-buy music at any time."

"…Some of the problems that are holding up the cell phone music market in the U.S. are network capacity, digital rights management and the lack of phones that can handle storing the music."

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