BMI projects that ringbacktones will surpass $210 million in U.S. retail sales during calendar year 2008, up 50% from BMI’s 2007 market estimate of $140 million. A ringbacktone is a musical work that is performed to the caller when they place a call to a participating mobile subscriber.
BMI also predicted that the U.S. ringtone market will continue to decline in 2008, generating approximately $510 million in retail sales for the calendar year. This represents a $40 million or 7% reduction
from calendar year 2007, marking the second consecutive year that the U.S. ringtone market has waned. BMI pegged the 2007 market at $550 million (U.S.) in retail sales, down $50 million from the prior year. The company estimates the ringtone domain experienced sales of $600 million in calendar year 2006; $500 million in 2005; $245 million in 2004 and $68 million in 2003, respectively.
“The market for ringbacktones has grown stronger than we originally forecasted last year,” said Richard Conlon, Vice President, New Media & Strategic Development, BMI. “Its growth, coupled with the positive gains that streaming mobile media have made in 2008 alone, supports our bullish point of view on the growth of the mobile entertainment business. We see gains in mobile audio and mobile television style services in the coming years as well. As we forecasted last year, the ringtone market continues to decline as the novelty phase wears off and lower-priced substitutional products come to market.”
