When Nokia introduced their new dubstep ringtone, I talked a lot of smack about the ringtone business and now it seems that I stand (moderately) corrected: The ringtone business is still worth a cool $2 billion. Somehow. Peter Kafka of AllThingsD seems to be one the one who dug up the interesting tidbit while looking over Gartner’s newest numbers. The ringtone industry, oddly listed as “Personalization Services,” actually makes up a pretty big part of online music revenue worldwide. They make roughly 4x more money than subscription services like Spotify and Rhapsody. How are those numbers going to change if streaming services really start gaining traction? Well, hopefully in a way that involves less ringtones.
(AllThingsD via Business Insider)
- I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise since Crazy Frog made a half billion alone
- Good Guy NASA gives out ringtones for free
- Yeah, Nokia has a dubstep ringtone now
