Are you using an iPod to listen to music while on the go? Well, you may be in the minority now. A new study by MultiMedia Intelligence reports that over a half-billion music-enabled cellphones shipped in 2007. This outpaces the numbers of iPods sold last year by just about 300 million.
That conclusion may be somewhat misleading because presumably the purpose of a music-enabled cellphone is still to be a phone first, and some purchasers may not use the music capabilities at all. If you buy an iPod, on the other, you are almost certainly using it to listen to music. Still, if the data is to be believed, by 2011 the number of music-enabled mobile phones will be approaching one billion units shipped, likely further outpacing the iPod.
It is almost a certainty that Steve Jobs foresaw this trend when he put in motions his plans for the iPhone. Consumers simply do not want to carry around multiple devices on a daily basis when one will do the same thing.
Interestingly enough, though, the iPhone does not fall into MultiMedia Intelligence's definition of a music phone because it does not have expandable memory. This has been an option many consumers have stated they would like to see in the device. Could it be added along with the other rumored improvements to the 3G iPhone (our coverage)?
The report also states that as full track music downloading and streaming to mobile devices joins with the already lucrative ringtone business, the mobile music market should hit over $6 billion in 2008.
[photo: flickr/theowi84]