June 3, 2004
Ringback Tones Survey Results are Music to Operators' Ears
Results of the first European survey to gauge consumer demand for personalised ringback tones reveal they may be the next must-have application for phone users.
The survey published today by Alatto Technologies shows:
-- 37% of all consumers aged 15-49 would subscribe to the new service.
-- Interest was highest among the 15-24 age bracket with 68% of those willing to pay, prepared to part with between 50 cent and 2 Euro to personalise their handsets.
-- Content type was also examined in detail. MTV and movie themes‚ was the most popular overall choice (60%) however pop music (88%) and rock (83%) were most in favour with the youth market. The service was slightly more popular with males (53%) than with females (47%).
"The data suggests ringback tones will be as popular in Europe as they have been in Asia", said John Whelan, Head of Research at Alatto Technologies. "Certainly interest in our solution, vConnect has been very strong. We expect to see network operators in Europe continue to launch throughout the Summer and anticipate the service will be available in Ireland before Christmas".
SK Telecom who launched ringback tones in Korea in April 2002 has 8 Million subscribers generating more than $ 9 Million in new revenue each month.
In Europe, T Mobil was the first operator to launch in December 2003. It claims to have more than half a million customers using their Caller Tunes service in Germany, the UK and the Czech Republic.
And just last week Swedish operator COMVIQ / TELE2 launched their ring back service ringuppsignaler.
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