After years of missing out on the revenue from mobile ringtones, the music industry is finally looking to cash-in on the latest craze in mobile personalisation - Ring Back Tones (also known as caller tunes). Ring Back Tones allow mobile subscribers to customise the idle call connection tone with music, celebrity greetings or even jokes. Callers to the user's phone hear the selected content (such as the latest hit song) until the call is answered. In some parts of Asia, the market for Ring Back Tones surpassed that of ringtones within six months to become mobile users' favourite personalisation 'technique' according to Netsize.
Because traditional polyphonic ringtones are synthesised 'covers' of popular hits - many music labels have been unable to capture the vast revenues generated by the ringtone craze. Because Ring Back Tones use the original master recording, the labels are now entitled to earn money on their artists' tracks. The market for Ring Back Tones in Europe is expected to be worth US$1.5 billion by the end of 2005. Since the service is managed operator-side, and is independent of handset and SIM card-type, the services can be launched to entire subscriber bases and quickly reach penetration levels of above 20% within the first 12 months of launch says Netsize.
"Ring Back Tones have been enormously successful in regions such as Korea where more than a third of all mobile users subscribed to RBT services within 18 months," explains Craig Barrack, Country Manager at Netsize. "Boosting monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) by more than US$2 per month, analysts predict the Korean RBT market to be worth in excess of US$100 million in 2004. Similar services were soon launched in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China."
"In Europe, we expect RBT services to achieve at least a 20% penetration rate within one year of launch. The traditional charging model has been a monthly subscription and a charge every time the subscriber changes their tone. This will let mobile operators generate a return-on-investment in as little as six months of launch," adds Barrack.
In Europe, T-Mobile UK became the first operator to launch Ring Back Tones, named 'Caller Tunes'. Mobile operators in China, Korea, Singapore and Vietnam have already launched RBT services with the Netsize solution, with carriers in the Philippines, France, Portugal and Thailand currently carrying out testing. Netsize is able to provide operators with high-quality content, enabling end-users to select from a constantly updated variety of tones, sound effects, voice messages and music
The Netsize Ring Back Tones solution incorporates a full technical platform, as well as content sourcing, management and multi-channel billing, enabling mobile operators to quickly launch Ring Back Tones services to subscribers."
Posted to the site on 3rd February 2004
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/10538.php