Synopsis

Music has been one of the key drivers behind the early developments in digital media and with faster speeds both mobile broadband based and fixed broadband from the National Broadband Network (NBN), video streaming is overtaking music downloading. Nevertheless downloading music, music streaming, podcasting and MP3s are still being downloaded in larger numbers. Even illegal downloading that included sharing music and video files was estimated to grow five-fold in five years from 2011. 

While a mobile is one of the preferred technologies for listening and downloading music, the unit pricing of the major telcos is not conducive to using these networks for music delivery. With included data on many mobile plans a lot of users will now use free or cheap internet sites to gain access to music. With about 20% or so of Australians who actually pay for downloaded music, many others are using the online killer music apps like YouTube and other cloud-based sites to deliver music. 

By early 2012 cloud-based music is just one of the innovative ways to store and also deliver music anywhere and anytime over-the-air. It is expected that the other 80% of the users who are using digital media online will try and then some will continue to use these services. With some service providers providing cheap or free complimentary access for a couple of months and access to over 10 million tracks some interspersed occasionally with ads, business models like these will be hard to contend with.

In this report we provide an overview of the digital media market in Australia, with some statistics and text based-information along with tabular data and some easy-to-read charts.

Companies mentioned

Companies mentioned in this report include – Nokia, Apple, Sony, ninemsn, Rara, BigPond Music, Rdio, JB Hi-FI, Grooveshark, Spotify, Take 40.

Hot topics and technologies mentioned

Hot topics and technologies mentioned in this report include – music streaming, illegal downloading, podcasting, MP3s.