WOW! Cell phone ring tone sales hit $3.5B
 

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/13/news...eut/index.htm?

Cell phone ring tone sales hit $3.5B
Those little jingles are turning into a big business.
January 13, 2004: 9:38 AM EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Sales of mobile phone ring tones, those tinny song recordings programmed into millions of handsets around the world, jumped 40 percent in the past year to $3.5 billion, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The worldwide sale of ring tones, which started as a marketing gimmick for music labels and mobile phone companies, is roughly equivalent to 10 percent of the $32.2 billion global music market.

Replacing the standard phone ring with a few bars from Elvis or a favorite TV show was first popularized by tech-savvy teenagers in the late 1990s.

The subsequent success of ring tones is a rare bit of good news for the music industry which has been stung by Internet piracy and fickle fans who would rather spend their money on video games than compact discs.

The popularity is also an important revenue generator for indebted mobile phone operators who have invested vast sums on the roll-out of 3G phone networks.

Revenues for ring tones are divided between the music labels, their artists and mobile phone operators. The average price of a ring tone is 60 cents, according to the study by London-based telecommunications consultancy, The Arc Group.


"It's become a very profitable area and there's strong growth ahead," said Richard Jesty, an analyst for The Arc Group.

Ring tone prices vary widely by region, with SK Telecom Co, South Korea's largest mobile carrier, charging the equivalent of 20 cents while Britain's Vodafone charges roughly 1.50 pounds ($2.76), Jesty said.

He forecast that sales will remain brisk through 2008 when downloads will top $5.2 billion. But as higher-power phones come on the market, consumers will turn to downloading larger files such as video games, sport highlights and short video clips.

As is the case with other forms of music, piracy is a problem with a host of small Web sites selling cheap music downloads without authorisation from music companies.

Ring tones and games still lag well behind basic text messaging, which generated $40 billion last year for mobile phone companies. That figure is expected to explode as phone users get into the habit of sending multimedia and picture-messages, Jesty said

hmm, I have some ringtone domains.. how can a webmaster get a chunk of that billion bucks, gotta be a way :Graucho

Alright, you've got my attention. Now where are some good affiliate programs behind ringtone sales?

WG

Holy fuck people love to waste their fucking money!

No shit, it's amazing how much a guy will spend on something that makes him look like an ass.

All you gotta do is get a MP3/wav to mid converter, and you can get all the free tones you want

2 years ago I told Greg this would be a Billion $ biz. Of course, I never could figure out (or really tried) how to make a buck off of it.

I had spent money on this few times.
Even my mother ( she does not use the PC at all ) wanted to get her some new ringtone to her mobile. :2 cents:

exactly :thumbsup

im still in shock

I can see making a site with little shitty games that cost $1 a peice or something, even screensavers and stuff, but there's no way to get LEGAL ringtones and make money since no one wants original crap you make and you would need to liscense all the music that anyone would want.

You could always do a classical music ringtone site since all the old classical music is public domain now. :Graucho

Yep its big business. I know someone who is getting into it now as well. Set up fee's aren't too steep and he hopes to make a lot of money from it.

That along with something to do with cell fones and adult will make him a rich man.

How about a ring tone that sounds like a fart? :1orglaugh

yeah, what Moose said!

CELLPHONEBUCKS

:thumbsup

call it BoobiPhone?

How about now, have you figured how to take a sliver of the pie?
WG

Please keep posting links to affiliate programs, I'm interested in seeing what you people have used in the past.

WG

people really got too much money
i am no fan of that ring tone stuff
i find it so annoying when people have aweful ringtones for example at public places...

Anyone who's been in Europe in the past 5 years could predict that.. :)

Buying stuff for your cellphone, be it ring tones, logos, dating stuff, has been huge over there for a while and is still growing.

I don't see the US rates on this page:
http://cellphonebucks.com/products.php

anyone have one for US webmasters?:helpme

ringtone creation is basically making/finding a midi of a popular song. Getting the ringtone conversion software (something like 10$) and finding a memorable riff within the midi. Find an sms provider to send them out and your sorted

If anyone knows the people that run this program, you might want to inform them that their domains don't work if you emit the www. part of it...

Aren't you forgetting that the RIAA wants a piece of that pie?

I've been making a few K/month with ringtones for over 3 years now:thumbsup Only from the Belgian market (http://mobilemagic.be/)

I believe it.....

has anyone else ever hired a musician to program a favorite song of theirs that was not made available in midi or other ringtone format?


Mike B

:thumbsup

Teenagers with disposable incomes?

I have some killer ringtone domains that do great traffic.

It's hard to believe its $3.5 Billion. That's $10 Million a day. That would take a hell of a lot of transactions to achieve at the small amounts they charge.

Waste money? The ringtones are about 2 quarters each.

They're cheap.

Btw, does anyone have a list of like the top 10 ringtone sites?

that's insane.

I thought about getting into the ringtone market 2 years ago, but lame sms capability in my area prevented it. Time to make it happen... :Graucho

If anyone has some GREAT ringtone domains they want to sell hit me up at [email protected]

i'm buying ring tones domains
email me [email protected]

I know I still cant believe it I just CANT!

Must be a mistake

I was thinking the same thing too, I browsed around, and I don't see any high-traffic ringtone "vendors".

That's a lot of ring tones, boy

I sail short ring tones long time now.