The Digital Radio Development Bureau has announced that more than five million DAB digital radios have been sold in the UK, equating to almost 10 million listeners tuning in to DAB around Britain.
The consumer electronics industry’s research body, Gfk, has revealed the landmark figures, following the positive news on the growth of digital radio listening from RAJAR.
The 10 million listeners figure marries well with RAJAR’s figure of 19.5% of the adult population living in a DAB household. DAB set penetration now stands at 18% of all UK homes and is well on track to meet the 20.6% penetration forecast by the DRDB for the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, independent research for BT Movio (see C4 To Simulcast On Movio) into how people are using their mobile TV and DAB radio service via mobile phones shows that while consumers are buying the product to receive broadcast TV, they are actually using the DAB digital radio more.
38% of users listened to DAB daily (rising to 46% of 16 to 24-year-olds). Of these, nearly half tuned in for an hour or more per session. 70% of 16 to 35-year-olds were happy to recommend DAB, and 83% of those with an opinion said DAB was better than analogue, based on sound quality, reliability and user experience. In many cases, especially amongst younger users, this is a first exposure to DAB digital radio.
The past 12 months have seen some exciting innovations in DAB digital radio, including Slideshow, music downloads, the arrival of “DABverts”, the first DAB chip in a mobile phone, and, increasingly, DAB included in MP3 players. The recent announcement of an iPod plug-in device that allows users to tune in DAB and FM via their iPod has been warmly welcomed by the radio industry.
As digital radio listening continues to grow and functionality increases, the DRDB has identified the need to move DAB into more devices, including mobile phones, MP3, MP4, docking stations, and plug-in devices.
This will enhance the appeal of radio and deliver richer radio content in more places for consumers, creating a much bigger total market for radio-enabled devices than has existed to date. To this end, the DRDB will expand later this year bringing on board expertise in telecoms, the automobile sector and new technology.
At the last RAJARs, it was revealed that a quarter of 15-24-year-olds with a mobile phone (1.6 million) listen to the radio via their handsets, the same figure as for the fourth quarter.
In addition, 2.5 million (18% of mp3 player owners) use their mp3 player to listen to downloaded podcasts, up from 2.1 million in Q4.
A recent forecast from In-Stat said that the market for digital radio receivers will grow from 5 million units in 2005, to almost 25 million unit shipments in 2010 (see Market For Digital Radio Receivers To Grow).
Towards the end of last year, the DRDB released a forecast which said that DAB set penetration is on track to top 50% household penetration by 2010 (see DAB Penetration To Reach 50% Of Households).
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