Regions Where Mobile Ringtones Are Very Popular

it's been only a decade since they came into existence, but with the way mobile phone ring tones are continuing unabated, to leave their signature tunes all across the globe; they seem to be anything but just a fad.

Having started off in its most basic and crudest form in Finland, mobile phone ring tones today, according to reports, are generating more than $ 4 billion in annual worldwide revenues. And with the up gradation of technology at their disposal mobile phone ring tones are being constantly morphed into an exciting ‘new’ rage day in and day out.

As per reports, the Asian market by far remains within the strong hold of novel mobile phone ring tones for several reasons. South – East Asian music artistes, enjoy immense popularity in their home countries largely owing to the fact that they are non – English speaking nations and therefore their audiences are restricted to those within their home country and the relatively small Diaspora spread across the globe. With 'sing tones' having been touted as the latest avatar of ring tones, these have undoubtedly found a large fan following in countries such as Japan, which according to researchers is supposed to be the land of origin for Karaoke. Sing tones allow the user to record his or her voice to a popular soundtrack and tune in automatically to sound good with the help of available software. This can later be downloaded onto the user’s mobile phone and then subsequently shared with others.

India, in the South – Asian sub – continent, is home to the burgeoning Bollywood industry and only naturally lends itself to being an extremely lucrative opportunity for mobile phone ring tones downloads. Experts say that the market for value added services for mobile phones stands at $125 million and in itself accounts for about 20 per cent of the revenue earned by mobile phone operators. Within this value added services segment, ring tones account for roughly 80 per cent of the segment, thereby being the largest player. Along with the popular Bollywood movies' sound tracks, there are several other budding artistes whose compositions are a favourite for mobile phone ring tones. These artistes along with the music composers for Bollywood films have taken to specifically composing ring tones for mobile phones and there is enough and more debate with regards to the demand of these professionals for an additional payment of fees for composing ring tones and licensing them to mobile phone operators. The widespread Indian Diaspora are also made available these ring tones through licensing arrangements made by the producers with off – shore distributors for an already agreed upon fee. Industry experts peg this profit share on a 50 – 50 basis largely. Although India is not an English speaking nation, the only advantage it has against its South – East Asian counterparts is that with the popularity of the Bollywood industry lot of United Kingdom based artistes such as Dr. Dre, Rishi Rich, Sean, et al have taken to incorporating snippets of some famous tracks into their compositions thereby leading to its widespread presence and acceptance.

Speaking of United Kingdom that seems to be another region that experts say is a popular hot spot for mobile phone ring tones, with the trend of ring tone DJ's seriously catching up with its inhabitants. Not to mention the presence of local awards for the best ring tone compositions and the equivalent of 'Top Ten Chartbusters' list. Now, that is one country that surely has a lot of music artistes and ring tone composers humming all the way to the bank!