Forecast: Ringbacks to yield $4.7B worldwide by 2012

Worldwide ringback revenues will nearly triple to $4.7 billion by 2012 according to a new forecast issued by research firm MultiMedia Intelligence, which anticipates ringbacks will fall just shy of mobile gaming revenue in capturing the largest share of the $29 billion global mobile premium content market. According to MultiMedia Intelligence, realtone ringtones are gradually displacing polyphonic ringtones in all regional markets, although realtones face a growing threat from user-created ringtones--the report notes that the price disparity compared to a full-track download is also a serious threat to continued realtone growth.

While retail mobile music has almost matured in the Korean market, it remains an expanding market in Japan--still, the report forecasts that the Japanese mobile market will grow to more than seven times the size of its Korean counterpart by 2012. Despite the emergence of handsets as fully realized multimedia devices, streaming mobile music services nevertheless lag behind other mobile music categories, MultiMedia Intelligence adds.

For more on the mobile music forecast:
- read this release [1]

Related articles:
BMI: Ringtones waning, ringbacks [2] rising
Virgin Mobile USA launches Ringback [3] Playlist