May 4, 2006
Ring Tones Acquire Some Classical Tastes
The NY Times on the ringtone market and the older consumers' budding interest in dowloading classical music.
... ."As a category, classical ring tones have not made it to the Top 10 yet. From the start, the focus of the industry has been on popular music, since teenagers have shown the most interest in modifying their phones.
Today, the 60+ group represenst a tiny fraction of the market for ring tones. Almost one in four cellphone users 18 to 24 years old have bought a ring tone in the last six months. But only 9 percent of cellphone users 35 to 44 have done so, and only 2 percent of those over 55 have bought a ring tone.
Part of the reason for older people's slowness toward personalizing ring tones is that the selection for this group has been limited. But that is changing.
Boosey & Hawkes, a British classical music publisher, for example, recently decided to capture some of the market by making 300 of the most popular classical music recordings in its catalog available as ring tones at booseytones.com. These include familiar pieces like Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Copland's Appalachian Spring.
But Boosey & Hawkes's classical tones cost much more than most popular ring tones, $5.56 apiece, compared with $2 to $3 for more popular genres.
In 2005 the ring-tone market had revenues of $603 million, and that number is expected to reach $931 million this year, Jupiter says. By 2010 ring-tone revenues are forecast to grow to $1.3 billion."
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