Global revenues from mobile music streaming services are expected to rise by more than 40 per cent this year, according to a report from Juniper Research, to a total $1.7bn (£1.1bn).

Even more interestingly, this figure will actually overtake the revenues generated by track downloads to mobile devices.

In contrast, revenues from legacy services such as ringtones and ringback tones will continue to decline sharply, with ringtones in Western Europe now worth just two per cent of their peak value.

“Historically, companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon have primarily focused on cloud music from a storage perspective; as a remote locker for downloaded tracks,” said report author Dr Windsor Holden. “Apple’s forthcoming iRadio service is likely to bring significant pressure to bear on the existing players – and prompt competing offerings from the other major OTT companies.”

The growth, according to the report, is increasingly driven by partnerships between service providers and mobile operators, which offer the service as a value-added services – but the majority will come from the US, which is set to overtake South Korea as the leading market for mobile streamed music services this year.

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