Welcome to the third part of the ringback tones coverage. Today, Seamus McAteer will be visiting 
here. Seamus is a co-founder, chief product architect and senior analyst at M:Metrics. Seamus has covered the wireless industry since the early 1990s and has earned a reputation as one of the most respected and credible analysts in the industry. He held director and research fellow positions in several corporations analyzing internet and communications technology before founding his own wireless and telecommunications advisory services firm. He is frequently sought by the media for expert commentary on wireless, Internet and related technologies.
If you missed the previous two part here are the links: the first part and second part.
Seamus, the stage is yours:
Hi Seamus. Thank you for visiting Xellular Identity :) How are you?
Great, thanks :)
What kind of business models exist today in the ringback tones market?
Pricing for Ringbacks can vary quite considerably. Most operators charge a monthly fee of between 99 cents for Cingular and Verizon and $1.49 for T-Mobile. Sprint charges $2.50 for use of a tone for a 90 day period. Some operators such as Boost charge a monthly subscription fee for use of a song. Again, like the issue with lots of different names, lots of different pricing schemes has got to create some confusion.
Labels like Ringback tones because it yields a nice recurring revenue stream and they get a nice royalty payment as operators will use a label-owned recording by the artist, this is not the case for poly tones for example. As a result labels can expect so share north of 30% of the retail revenue in most major markets.
Do you see correlation between market adoption and churn for ringback tones?
Comparing adoption rates and churn across markets it is evident that as adoption climbs churn falls. For example Spain has the highest level of adoption among the markets with track with about 10% of Spanish mobile subscribers over 13 reportedly using the service and it has the lowest churn rate of about 12% in a month. Italy has the highest churn of over 20% monthly and the lowest rate of adoption after the UK at about 3%.
Any examples of marketing best practices?
Verizon has the highest level of awareness and lowest churn for ringback services in the US. Its packaging of the services has been effective – it uses an introductory notification to tell the caller that their party is being reached. It’s launch was also effective, it worked closely with Warner Music on a mutual campaign.
Anything else to add to this interview?
Nothing, except that it was nice to hang out with you and the Comverse team at your customer event in Miami to talk about theories of social networking and the ringback market!
A big thanks to Seamus for his willingness to put the time and effort to convert his presentation given at the Fun Dial marketing Seminar (April 2007, Miami) into an interview and share with us all. :)
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