The ringtone industry is striking a popular cord with the
teenage market. This group, mostly 13 to 24-year-olds, likes
to purchase their favorite tune or sound without paying the
high price for a CD. This segment isn't afraid to drop lots
of discretionary income to download monophonic or polyphonic
sounds, which makes the ringtone industry very happy.
According to RealityTVWorld.com, today’s teens are
willing to substitute cell phone minutes for the latest
ringtone. This behavior places this age group in the largest
population of ringtone purchasers. Since over 40% of cell
phone users fall into this group and have disposable income,
the ringtone industry is making the most of this
opportunity. The market is so large among this young
population that, according to a study by Wireless World
Forum, young people are spending eight times more on mobile
phones than music. Currently, trends in the U.K. show that
the ringtone market holds 10% of the total music market.
This population's buying power is equally impressive in the
United States where teenagers spend nearly as much on
ringtones as on text messaging. The sale of ringtones
worldwide adds up to $3.5 billion, according to IT Facts
online (http://www.itfacts.biz).
Naturally, the music industry isn't highly thrilled about
this shift in sales from the more expensive CD to much less
expensive ringtones - even though the publisher or
songwriter of the music or tone is entitles to royalties.
Still, a ringtone royalty isn't quite as high of a
percentage as a CD royalty. Some future analysts of this
market are predicting that the mobile phone and ringtone
industry are going to dip even farther into the music
industry by giving mobile phones technology similar to iPods.
|
About The Author
Copyright 2005 Samuel Mitone. All rights reserved.
Samuel Mitone is the owner and operator of Fever
Ringtones, a premier resource for all the latest
ringtones on the web. Please go take at look at his
archive of articles: http://www.feveringtones.com
|
This article was posted on August 26, 2005
