Digital music market in Korea
original article
Collapse of Traditional music industry
Music Industry shrank from $400 M market in 2000 to less than $100 M market in 2006, while Digital Music Industry grew to $340 M in 2006 from $91 M in 2001. It is mainly due to piracy music distribution through P2P. Korea's high penetration rate of broadband service helped prevailingness of P2P in some degree.Telco's Rock'N Roll
During crashing market, Telecom and internet companies aggressively acquired music lable companies. SK Telecom, Korea's #1 wireless carrier, acquired YBM Seoul Music in 2006. Bluecode acquired DoReMi media in 2005. Only 2 music lable company among top 5 music lable company in 2005 survived in 2006. (SM Entertainment, Yedang Entertainment are survivors.) How did Telco and internet companies corrupted online music market? Let's see the composition of digital music market in Korea.
In 2005, ringtone and ring back tone market took 80% of digital music market. There is no "music" market in digital world in Korea. There are only ringtones, ring back tones, and BGM's. (There is still a hope, though. Download / streaming music is growing.)
