It's a sobering thought during the week of the iPhone launch. JupiterResearch just released a report saying that while music-capable mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous in the U.S., very few of their owners are actually using them for music.

The firm found that only 2 percent of phone owners are downloading songs over the air. In addition, a slightly higher number (5 percent) are transferring digital songs onto their phones. That still amounts to more than 27 million consumers, but it pales in comparison to the 100+ million iPods and millions of other brand MP3 players floating around.

"While the iPhone could raise consumer awareness of, and interest in, music phones from other manufacturers and mobile operators, it is more likely to attract a unique market segment, hard for competitors to emulate," Joe Laszlo, a research director at JupiterResearch, said in the MediaPost article about the latest report. He predicted that the iPhone wouldn't have much of an effect on these numbers, despite all the hype.

JupiterResearch: Music-Capable Phones Not Singing [MediaPost]