I was reading one of our analyst reports from the recent Music Matters conference in Hong Kong (please excuse the little video that plays when you click the MM link, egh). Since I was away for the week, it was something to read to help me catch up on what was happening in the digital music space in Asia.

MTV Networks, the music videos broadcaster, and research group Synovate did a study on digital music in the entire Asia-Pacific region. Here are some interesting facts from their research:

In Asia, in 2006: MP3 player ownership is high (85 percent); and mobile phone is the preferred music device (68 percent).

In 2007: Music consumption is heaviest in the youth market, but music spend is low compared to music download activity. (Ed. This is another of those data points that stick out like a sore thumb. Again, in line with what I continually hammer on about, people want free content. Traditional music players in Asia, however, insist on paid content. Consumers just go elsewhere, though.)

But there is hope. The survey suggests that 84 percent of young Asians are positive about music, 54 percent love music and 4 percent hate music. With those numbers--and considering there are 1 billion mobile subscribers in Asia that can take in music on their devices--this should tell people that this audience will consume music, or they will certainly consume and click on or link to, or drive traffic to advertisers paired with music offerings. That means good potential for ad-supported streaming music mobile services with purchase potential for music offered on the service. Just think, if you sold one track to 1 billion people, you'd be a rich person.

But here is the statistic that stood out to me. Synovate/MTV ranked countries in order of "passion" about music. They found:

Music passion by country in order: (71 percent) India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong (lowest).

I can't answer the following question: Why is Hong Kong so allegedly apathetic about music in digital form?

Here are some possibilities:

1. Music sucks here?
2. It's becoming risky to download free music or upload MP3s, so people are staying away from music services? Keep in mind the criminal approach taken by the Government, hunting down people who stream or upload copyright material.
3. Music industry is not pushing for digitization fast and aggressively enough?
4. Poor marketing on the part of recording industry?
5. Everyone in Hong Kong was in Singapore on the day of the survey?

 

rion
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