— File Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

The next generation ``3G'' mobiles with superior data transmission will further fuel downloads.

CHENNAI: Just two years back, the World Wide Web with its score of free download portals and Peer-to-peer (P2P) sites, found record industry players, with their backs to the wall. But now they are looking to fight fire with fire, by embracing digital technology through the mobile phone space.

Companies holding rights to popular film music — the staple for the music business here — have received a shot in their arms with the growing popularity of ring tones and ring back tones, among India's mobile phone users. Faced with diminishing returns from the sale of CDs and cassettes, they are no longer fighting shy about digitising their content.

Recent projections by digital distribution companies, such as Singapore-headquartered Soundbuzz, point out that music downloads through mobile phones are tipped to overtake the sale of CDs and audiocassettes this year. Quoting research studies of PricewaterHouseCoopers and the non-profit Swiss organisation International Federation of Phonographic Industry, Soundbuzz CEO Sudhanshu Sarronwala says India will be the second country, after South Korea, to see such a trend.

Mobile music downloads, according to industry estimates, are on an upward spiral and set to grow from annual sales figure of Rs. 450 crore in 2005 to an estimated Rs. 4,100 crore in 2009. The growth this year, though, is slated to be the `tipping point' when mobile downloads take over.

Record label companies are seeing the need to come together to fully exploit the trend. The South India Music Companies Association (SIMCA) in Chennai acts as a facilitator — bringing together the record labels, digital distribution companies and the telecom service providers. Between April 1 and September 30 last year, SIMCA was able to get around 35 of its members Rs.1.64 crore as royalty for its music that was used by mobile companies as ring tones and ring-back tones. Since September last to this month, returns have been around Rs. 1.86 crore.

M. Kalyan of 5 Star Audios, one of the prominent publishers of Tamil film songs, says he suffered nearly a 75 per cent drop in off-the-shelf sales over the past two years due to various factors such as online piracy and offline sale of illegal MP3 CDs. ``However thanks to mobile downloads I have been able to get back 25 per cent of those losses.'' Record labels are eagerly awaiting the proliferation of 3G mobiles that would facilitate full song downloads. For most of them, that would be an important factor in making the virtual store a serious contender to the offline stores. Soon, the biggest music store could be in your hands.

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