LONDON-Young American wireless users will spend nearly $500 million on ringtones, ring-back tones and full-track mobile downloads by 2007, according to new research from mobileYouth.
While CD single sales continue to decline, according to the report, record companies and artists will increasingly look to the mobile music to market their wares to young users. Meanwhile, U.S. teens will nearly triple their spending for ringtones and other applications, jumping from $5 a month to $14.
“MobileYouth believes that the eventual disappearance of CD singles will make it easier for emerging artists to raise their profile by releasing a ringtone or full-track download than releasing a single CD,” the company said in a prepared statement. “The evident popularity of mobile music downloads could yet lead to further implications for the future, as whole genres of music, such as rock and guitar, which do not convert well into ringtones, disappear.”
