February 8, 2004
British entrepreneur is 'Lord of the Ring Tones'
The San Mateo County Times has an interesting article on Alexander Amosu, dubbed "Lord of the Ring Tones", who was one of the first to tap into the ring tone trend when he founded R 'n' B Ringtones three years ago.
The article gives insight on the ringtone market in the US vs the rest of the world:
"Everyone's into ring tones here and they have been for a long while -- the ring tone market in the States is probably four years behind us," Amosu estimated.
The research company IDC estimates that Americans shelled out more than $57 million on ring tones in 2003, compared with only $16 million in 2002. Ring tone sales in Japan and Europe totaled about $5 billion in 2003.
Vendors typically charge about 99 cents for monophonic tones to about $2.50 for higher-quality polyphonic versions.
Some analysts believe ring tone sales in Europe have peaked, and that revenues are likely to be cut in half over the next four years.
"It's widely accepted that ring tones have had their day in Europe and possibly in Asia as well," said Paul Skeldon, an analyst at Juniper Research".
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