The ringtone business continues to grow year on year. A new report from US market research firm Consect shows that ringtones are now worth $300 million a year in America, and $4 billion a year worldwide. Given that current estimates say the music business is worth $32 billion annually, mobile ringtones are becoming a seriously important revenue stream for the music industry - especially now that the growth in 'real tones' means that the record labels as well as the music publishers are benefiting from the phenomenon.
Many in the industry now hope that the success of ringtone sales can be replicated with other mobile music gimmicks, further expanding the income record labels and music publishers can expect from the mobile industry. And word is that those who resent the powerful position Apple have built for themselves in the legit download space are hoping that mobile phones rather than iPods will become the digital music player of choice, giving the music industry to regain some control of the digital music place (assuming, of course, the telephone companies will let them). Those of that opinion are pointing out that, despite the huge success of iTunes, the global sales of ringtones generated eight times that of the Apple download platform in the last year.
All of which means that senior record label execs are keen to talk up the long term future of mobile music. SonyBMG's Thomas Hesse told Reuters recently: "This is not a fad that will go away in the next year or so. Ultimately we believe the phone will be the player of choice for mobile music".