NEWS The ubiquitous Crazy Frog and its ilk won't be dying out just yet - realtones for mobiles are only just getting going, according to new research.
A new report from Informa Telecoms and Media predicts that by 2010, mobile music will be worth $11.3bn, with nearly $6.8bn worth of realtones - mobile phone ringtones that sound like a real song rather than digitised music - sold by the end of the decade.
Ringtones of all varieties are expected to be worth $4.9bn this year, with almost all ringtones set to become real music by 2010.
According to Jessica Sandin, principal analyst for mobile content and applications at Informa Telecoms and Media, there's a direct link between the popularity of real music ringtones and the number of iPods flying off the shelf.
"Soon there will be more phones capable of playing music out there than iPods," she said. "iPods have helped in terms of consumer experience - getting them used to using and downloading music."
The recording industry's enthusiasm for mobile content will also help the market to boom - the report predicts content will be worth $35.8bn by 2010.
"The recording industry sees [mobile content] as a better bet [than web music sales] - there's better DRM," Sandin said. "The record industry is starting to see mobile as a whole revenue stream."
Comments
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1. Adrian Lee
I wonder about those figures.
A ringtone can cost what, £3.50 or somethign stupid like that? Often made up of the chorus from a current song.
A song that I can buy as a single for £2 perhaps.
More and more phones are Bluetooth enabled these days and starting to play MP3's, and more computers are as well (and it doesn't take much to plug in a USB Bluetooth adaptor).
So rather than paying some ridiculous amount of money for each ringtone, people like myself with Bluetooth phone and computers can just transfer MP3's from computer to phone, £3.50 bypassed.....
How come iTunes and the like manage to charge 99p per song, while ringtone sellers manage to be so much more overpriced.....
2. anonymous
Ah, but Adrian, you are not the target demographic for such things.
Typically ringtone manufacturers are targetting gullible kids trying to make out that the ring tones are "teh c00lX0rz", when you and I both know that they aren't. It's just that kids (8-15 year olds typically) think they are.
3. anonymous
As a parent of that 'target demographic', all I can say is the sooner the OFT / ICSTIS/ WhoEver stamps out this scam the better.
Tell me, can anyone actually read the speed-scrolling small print about how to stop the CrazyFrog company ripping the kids (viz their parents)off to the tune (no pun intended) of £3.50 a week...?
Certainly no kid would ever bother with reading it.
And who is it who tells kids it's cool to download dozens of ringtones - it isn't us long-suffering parents, and I don't think it's other kids, either... ?
4. Richard A.
Time for a probe into this overpriced and artifivially inflated market, surely.
These scumbag ringtone pushers charge kids over £3 for a snippet of "music" that can be bought as a complete iTunes track for 99p. If there were true competition in this marketplace, prices should fall to 50p a ringtone - one must conclude that ringtone sellers conspire to artificialy keep prices up. That would be illegal.
Meanwhile, iTunes is investigated for differential pricing within Europe, (99p here, 79p there..) when in every other respect it generally provides an excellent and reasonably-priced service, despite it market dominance.
5. Craig
iTunes tracks cost 79p here, 99c over there...