Report: Carriers should skip OTA music, focus on sideloading

Digital music revenues in the United States will grow steadily over the next few years, but mobile network operators aren’t likely to see much of that money, according to a report from Yankee Group.
The market research firm said online music sales will climb from less than $2 billion this year to $5.34 billion by 2012 as CD sales continue to decline. But while more than 266 million music-enabled phones will be on the market by that time, only 9% of wireless users will use them as portable music players.
So instead of pushing over-the-air downloads that often sell for twice the price of an online tune, Yankee Group urged carriers to encourage sideloading songs from computers to mobile phones.
“Wireless carriers must aggressively push the PC rather than the phone as the digital music distribution channel,” the firm said. “The PC dominates music downloads.”