Mobile Music on the Rise: 40-45% of Digital Revenue for UMG

January is MIDEM time (even though, sadly, I cannot go this year), which means that music dominates the news. In an interview, the EVP of Universal's eLabs, Rio Caraeff on the revenues of Universal Music Group that:

"about 40 to 45% of our overall digital business is coming from mobile channels like Verizon and AT&T. [...] On much of our frontline pop or R&B or urban releases [...] we're seeing mobile comprising 20-45% of the [overall] revenue for those artists."

Wow! Universal's digital sales have been growing by 33% during the first 3 quarters of 2008, and they seem determined to fully converge "online", "mobile", etc into one:

"The consumer doesn't want a mobile-only experience - they want an all-digital multi-platform experience. They want to consume their music on their mobile handset [and] on PC and other online platforms. Partners like Verizon and AT&T wanted to have multi-platform online experiences as well. [...] Now at Universal, we don't have a mobile business. We don't have an online business. We just have one multi-platform digital business."

Amen to that! And how right he is. Universal also adapted pricing, so that a song costs the same no matter on which digital platform you buy it. And, apparently, mobile storefronts play a role, specifically Amazon's MP3 storefront, which is pre-loaded on the G1, the first Android phone. So it's app stores (or markets) all over this year, huh?

This shows that the majors learned from the pain of recent years and now get a grasp on the digital world. Good stuff that!

Adobe Flash Opens Screens

Flash maker Adobe isn't tiring on bringing out news these days: this time it announced the "Open Screen Project", in which it is partnering with a plethora of mobile industry giants, namely ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia (see also here re Microsoft's Flash competitor Silverlight), NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson (see also their initiative to marry J2ME and Flash here), Toshiba and Verizon Wireless as well as major media players such as the BBC, MTV Networks and NBC Universal.

It said "the project is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Adobe said it would open access to Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs)." This will include:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Adobe says its Flash Player reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled PCs and more than 500m mobile devices today. It now expects more than 1bn handsets to ship with Flash technology by the end of 2009 (this means a year faster than previously forecasted). Flash technology is used to deliver vector graphics, text, interactivity and application logic, video and sound over the Internet. Currently, more than 75% of broadcasters who stream video on the Web use Flash technology (YouTube will be a big contributor to that number).

Following my many posts on mobile Flash (see e.g. here and here), this now looks like a real assault on the medium. Given that Flash reduces developer cost (less porting because of vector-based graphics) means it is a likely boost to the content industry: more and richer content at lower cost. Could this be it?

Modu is raising a big round

One of the quirky stars of this year's Mobile World Congress, Modu, is apparently scoring a large round of funding, namely to the tune of $100m. The company adds to $20m funding previously raised from its founder Dov Moran (who had sold his previous business for $1.6bn to SanDisk), two Israeli funds, namely Genesis Partners and Gemini, and indeed SanDisk. The round values modu pre-money at $150m, which is healthy for an 18-month-old company but, according to the press, still $50m less of what Mr Moran had hoped to score.

Modu is an interesting concept that shrinks the key bit of the phone (including SIM card, address book, etc to a matchbox size, which then can be slipped into a variety of so-called "jackets", fancy phones that can be adapted to whichever occasion the user might find appropriate or indeed "mates", which enable other consumer electronics devices with the bliss of connectivity and the like.

The challenge may well be that the jackets and mates are supposed to be developed by third parties, and to convince enough players to do that (which is arguably required to create a compelling offering) might be the biggest challenge.

In time for Barcelona, Modu had announced a number of partnerships, including operators Vimpelcom (Russia), Cellcom (Israel) and TIM (Italy). Blaupunkt, GPS specialists Magellan Navigations and - again - SanDisk have apparently pledged support, too. On the content side, the world's largest music company Universal Music, navigation service provider TeleAtlas and a few more are in the mix.

I really do like it and I really hope that they'll pull it off. Somewhat clearly thought out of the box here, and that deserves praise!

Update: Modu has just received recognition of a Guinness World Record for the lightest mobile phone (at 40.1 grams and dimensions of 72.1mm x 37.6mm x 7.8mm).