Entire music songs downloaded onto mobile phones are as popular as never before. In 2008 Germans downloaded about 6 million songs onto their mobile phones paying 9 million Euros for them. This was revealed in the course of a market study carried out by the association for research on consumption (GfK) on behalf of BITKOM. Thus, the number of music downloads increased by 12% in 2008 as compared to the previous year despite the economic crisis. Many users are nowadays carrying with themselves entire music libraries on their multimedia mobile phones.
According to Mr Achim Berg, who is BITKOM vice president, the market for music downloads of entire songs is set to continue growing in 2009. Not only technical features of mobile phones would make downloads more attractive, but also falling prices. Thus, in the year 2008 the average price for such downloads fell by 7% to 1.33 Euros.
At the same time turnover generated through downloads of traditional ring tones has been falling. Even though the total turnover generated through such downloads reached 39 million Euros last year, which is still four times as much as turnover generated through entire songs, sales fell once more by a quarter last year. Songs in original length could nowadays also be used as ring tones, is the explanation by Mr. Berg given for the shift in the above markets. In total, Germans downloaded 16 million ring tones onto their mobile phones last year following 23 million in the year 2007. 