The Decline Of Cellphone Ring Tones
In most of the countries that M:Metrics tracks — Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy — the percentage of mobile phone subscribers buying a ring tone in an average month has fallen consistently over the last 12 months, to a low of 3.4 percent in Britain in October. In the United States, it was 9.3 percent, higher than the 9 percent of last October but below its January 2007 peak of 10 percent.
Mark Mulligan, vice president at JupiterResearch in London, puts the ring tone share of the overall mobile content market in Europe at about 29 percent this year, down from 33 percent last year.
The value of European ring tone sales is expected to be about $1.1 billion this year, about 10 percent higher than 2006, while the value of mobile games sold will be $550 million, about 33 percent above a year earlier, Mr. Mulligan told the New York Times.
This pretty much would lead the analyists to rethink their 2005 predictions of the ring tone business reaching $11 billion by 2010.
In Asia, “ringback” tones, which play over the phone as you wait for a call to connect, are still rather popular, but the novelty is soon bound to fade off. Most cellphones now allow you to create their own ringtone, and expect that to increase, especially with the trend towards people creating their own entertainment.
Filed under: Business, Mobile, Statistics