Most Asian youths listen to digital music on PCs and music players rather than mobile phones – but the ones who actually have phones are using them more as music devices.
A survey released Wednesday by Branded and Synovate at the Music Matters conference in Hong Kong found that while Asia’s youth use multiple devices to listen to music, the top device of choice is the PC in Vietnam (52%), Taiwan (50%), Malaysia (47%), the Philippines and Hong Kong (34%).
Across the region, 27% said they preferred MP3 players to listen to tunes, and 23% said they used mobile phones as a music device.
And when it comes to future usage, young people are more likely to spend more time using MP3 players and PCs (33% and 29%) than mobiles (25%).
That said, mobile’s low showing could be a matter of ownership. Of the respondents who actually own mobiles, over half of them use them to listen to music, Synovate says.
The majority of mobile users in Thailand (70%) Hong Kong, China (63% each), Vietnam (62%) Malaysia and India (both at 61%) said they listened to music on their mobiles.
Synovate executive media director Steve Garton said mobiles were also playing a growing role in music download stats, with almost half of respondents sideloading music from PCs to handsets.
However, just over 20% of them download music direct to handsets, he added. A Synovate/Branded survey two years ago with a smaller sample put that figure at 27%.
“Ideally, the music industry should be working with telecommunications companies to deliver music via mobile phone while marketers and brand owners should be exploring or realigning their strategies by incorporating music as a platform to reach this fast-growing and digitally driven segment,” Garton said in a statement.
Synovate surveyed 8,841 people aged 15 to 24 years in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.