January 5, 2005
The surprise rise of the US ringtone
Jupiter Research, predicts the installed base of ringtone-capable phones in the US will grow from 55 per cent of handsets in 2004 to 100 per cent by 2008. Downloads of music ringtones will grow from 6.1m in 2004 to 332.6m in 2009, creating US revenues of $897m in 2009, reports The Financial Times.
"Growth is currently very high, but it's from a small base," Julie Ask, senior analyst at Jupiter, says.
"Data as a percentage of revenues for European carriers is around 15 to 20 per cent, whereas it's still in single digits for US operators, so the US market has not taken off as quickly as thought."
She says this is a legacy of inter-operability problems between US carriers and the fact that Americans prefer their PCs to their phones for entertainment."
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/ringtonia/archives/2005/01/006637.htm