Study: Ring tones, mobile games to skyrocket
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Cell phones: They
do voice calling too?
The wireless handset is
morphing into a true
multimedia device, as
this week's CTIA show
is demonstrating.
Last year, ring tone revenue in the U.S. market was $217 million, up from $91 million in the previous year, the company said.
And in 2009, revenue from ring tones will reach $724 million, the company projected.
The mobile-game market also experienced growth and is expected to stay healthy, according to the market researcher. Revenue for 2004 grew to $72 million, up 300 percent compared with the previous year. The research company expects game revenue to reach $430 million in 2009.
The numbers echo the positive outlook of an earlier study. Strategy Analytics said in August that it expected worldwide mobile-data service revenue to triple by 2009.
Despite their increasing popularity, though, ring tones and games constitute just a fraction of carriers' revenue, partly because of the relatively poor market penetration of handsets that can handle those applications. Data services overall--including ring tones, games and messaging services--represent only single-digit percentages of cellular carriers' consumer revenue, Jupiter Media said.
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