UK tops music download chart of Europe
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Tuesday December 13, 2005
The Guardian
Germans may have Vorsprung durch Technik (progress through technology), but Britain leads Europe when it comes to the future of music, according to new research.
A survey conducted by Motorola into musical habits around the continent showed that the UK is more in tune with music downloading than any other European country. Britons spend an average of 75p a month on digital downloads, three times more than Germans, French or Italians. This reflects the widespread adoption of digital music in the UK, as well as a thriving legal internet music scene.
"The UK market is extremely ahead of the curve, because it's situated in the middle of America and Europe," said Gerd Leonhard, a music technologist. "British people use digital radio a lot, and they've adapted to iPod very quickly. Britain is definitely an opinion leader in Europe."
There is good news for retailers, who are expecting iPods and other MP3 players to sell well this Christmas. A quarter of Britons surveyed said they owned a digital music player, and more than a fifth of the over-50s surveyed said they were wired for sound. "Today we are in the midst of a revolution that is changing the way people communicate," said Sir David Brown, the chairman of Motorola.
The survey underlines a buoyant picture of the digital music market in Britain. The industry body BPI said there had been more than 10m downloads in the UK during the first half of 2005, and last week the iPod maker Apple confirmed that it had passed the landmark figure of 100m downloads from iTunes music stores across the continent. The figures represent "a dramatic acceleration in the purchase of legally downloadable music on the internet," an Apple spokesman said.
guardian.co.uk
