How to fight against illegal music downloads? Just offer the unlimited mobile downloads and it would be big business for mobile operators and also could shift consumers’ music habits away from older CD and PC-based technologies.

A report by TNS has found that within the UK alone, mobile phone owners could download 2.1 billion music tracks from the Sony Ericsson and Nokia music portals.

Last week’s statement by Sony Ericsson that it will partner with Omnifone to offer its PlayNow plus service is the latest in the race to bring unlimited music downloads bundles to market – kicked off by Nokia’s recent announcement that its ‘Comes With Music’ package will be available from next month.

The study also indicates that the new bundled music download services could shift consumers’ music habits away from older CD and PC-based technologies. 45% of CD buyers in Britain claim that they would buy fewer CDs if they adopted Nokia ‘Comes With Music’, while 47% of PC music down-loaders would expect to reduce their PC downloading.

[via Cellular-News]