Warner Music CEO warns that iPhone could take over the mobile music market

[Guest goodtime]

Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. walked into the 3GSM World Congress today and pointed right at the pink elephant in the room: The iPhone. Bronfman warned the industry that if it cannot improve mobile music services, it could lose the market to Apple.

 

Bronfman said that while there are millions of music phones on the global market, only 8.8% of users of these handsets have ever downloaded a music track over the air. Why? Because carrier mobile music services are too expensive and too hard to use.

 

Ouch. Score one for Apple.

 

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Edited February 16, 2007 by goodtime

[joe75]

I'm very happy with my MDA and WM6 is the {censored}

[Dice7]

poll should be:

 

yes

no

It's too early to tell.

I don't give a flying {censored} either way <--- thats my pick

 

but honestly I don't know yet.

[Suzuka]

I think, because of the price, it won't

[hecker]

I don't give a flying {censored} either way <--- thats my pick

I second that choice.

[bwhsh8r]

Its not going to because its gsm only, aka, no cdma, or w/e nextels on, and none of the other foreign types (but theyre mostly gsm) and most people will think you can only use it on cingular! (well.... if cingular locks all the phones then ull have to wait for the unlock code.....)

[Dice7]

woo hoo 2 for my option.

 

Dice

[Guest goodtime]

poll should be:

 

yes

no

It's too early to tell.

I don't give a flying {censored} either way <--- thats my pick

 

but honestly I don't know yet.

 

I would add this in, but it might reset the poll.

 

gt

[bwhsh8r]

hahah, and what does a warner music ceo know about phones anyway? talk about a random source, and yea, i guess i dont give a {censored}, but i beleve more strongly that it really wont, it may be popular... but the razr is bigger, and thats on every carrier out there! i dont think it will come near what the razr did, (of course theres no denying that was alot... but still)

[Urbz]

yesh I put it's too early to tell because...well... it is!

But Warner Ceo person there can't be trusted... lol who is he?

I think the first generation iPhone will generate a lot of buzz, and have its fair share of early adopters, but the real money will be a smaller, more mass-market phone. We will see more iPhones to come. The goal of this one, IMO, is to prove that Apple can make a really, really good phone, build some brand loyalty and strong believers, and then move in after a few generations and become the next Razr (which I own, BTW).

It's not like the mp3 market... it's a lot more congested and difficult to be seen. Even Apple will have trouble convincing people to buy their product right away. But in the niche market that's out there for smart-phone and those kind of devices, it can go either way. I'm more personally inclined to believe Apple will steal the show, but businessmen really might not care if it's a Blackberry, a Palm, or an iPhone.

 

Too early to tell!

 

-Urby

[MacMoof]

It's too early to tell at the moment, but all indications suggest that no, it won't take over the mobile phone market.

 

First off, I haven't heard a firm release date, second it's expensive since apparently Apple won't let the carrier subsidise the cost of the phone to prevent it from competing with their 'non cellular' products.. altho they might offer cheap service.

 

Third, you're limited to a single carrier.

 

Only way this phone would really dominate the market is if multiple carriers offered the phone, and you could get it cheap with a 2 year contract, like they do with every other phone.