Crazy Frog is a new whacky, chaotic and a cute character, launched in November
2004 amid mobile ringtone characters. Today, you may find more of Crazy
Frog-themed ringtones being preferred by the youth and is gaining fame in the
UK’s mobile phone download market.
As per the market analysts Mintel, the mobile phone users might spend a hefty
amount worth GBP 740mn (USD 1.3bn) on downloading of ringtones, music, games and
such other entertainment services in their handsets in 2008. This represents 18
times increase on the total expenditure on downloads to what the figure was
three years ago. While in 2002, the figure was 30 million, it is expected to
rise up to 760 million in sales of mobile downloads this year.
Third generation (3G) mobile phones have gained incredible popularity in the UK
charts for its user-friendliness to facilitate its users to download good
quality ringtones and games. The recent success of Crazy Frog downloads is a
perfect example to indicate the mushroom growth in this sector. Its garbled
vocal sounds have made people crazy about its ringtones, music, video and
screensavers downloads.
Just like the way people realised the potential of the Internet technology after
a few years of its launch, Crazy Frog also gained popularity gradually, starting
with a fortune of GBP 10 mn. Today, there are plenty of websites offering a
variety of Crazy Frog-themed ringtones online, ranging from Crazy Accents, Crazy
Animals, Crazy Beat Box, Crazy Cinema, Crazy, Music, Crazy Celebrity Parodies
through to Crazy Soccer, Crazy Sound, Hottest New Crazy, Crazy Cow, Crazy Named
Ringtones and Fun Crazy Ringtones.
Many websites also feature a ‘Top Ten’ ringtone chartbuster list and a list of
international song artists’ own composed songs that people can use as ringtones
after downloading. The Crazy Frog ringtone was supposedly the first ringtone to
have topped the pop charts in the UK.
As per the forecasts by Mintel, ringtones grab the largest share in the UK’s
download market, with sales in music downloads (33%) and games download (26%),
screensavers (13%), gambling (9%), music (8%) and miscellaneous downloads (11%).
In fact the download of gambling is further expected to increase by 367% in
2008. With the masses now playing ringtones, these are now tweaked upon to
adjust with different marketing and advertising strategies to build more revenue
for the industry. Even in North America, various companies in the market compose
their own product jingles and convert them into ringtones to sell them out as
sound files to the consumers or their target market. This kind of
personalization of ringtones in the country has further enticed big music
industry giants who have now embarked upon a series of launches of MP3 players
allowing mobile phone users to merge different sections of songs, as per their
preference, and use them as their ringtones.
Owing to the increasing level of interest in the market, major mobile operators
such as Vodafone, Orange and Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 networks have also increased
the total download content provided by them. However, people aged above 35 years
and older ones consider this a waste of money, and look forward to more
substantial products to be in sync with other sophisticated leisure activities
too.
Damn Funny! (by forestgum, Jul 14th, 2007)
