Demand for chaku-uta exceeds expectations - Music download service - Brief Article

Japan, Inc., May, 2003

... IN BRIEF: Yuiichi Katoh, director of Label Mobile, told the Japanese media recently that demand for the company's chaku-uta music download service is much greater than originally expected. Katoh said that 20,000 to 30,000 songs are downloaded daily from the KDDI site and that the number of users with chaku-uta capable phones is now around 100,000. The service sells MP3 song fragments less than 30 seconds m length for [yen] 80 to [yen] 100 yen per song.

Label Mobile was formed in July 2001 as a joint venture of several Japanese recording labels, including Avex, Sony Music Entertainment and Victor. The company's chaku-uta service is known as Record Gaisha Chokuei. When the service was launched in December, some industry insiders told us that it might be the next big thing in mobile content. Ringtones have been seeing stiff competition and dwindling subscriber numbers, and content providers were looking for something new to grab the keitai culture's imagination, while chaku-uta is similar to other MP3 download services, those services often require uscrs to have special PHS devices to make it work. Chaku-uta can be downloaded onto regular cellphones such as Casio's A5302CA and Hitachi's A5303H.

So far, it looks like chaku-uta is a hit.