Blog Entry : Caller Tunes

Caller Tune Industry:  A revolutionary Value Added Service

 

Caller tunes is an innovation through which a mobile phone user can personalize their typical phone ring. Hence, caller can select a musical tones or anything they like to be heard by their callers. This service is a value added service, and user has to pay monthly subscription fee and fee for the song or tone that they want instead of typical ringtone.

Let's get back to the origins; In July 2004, Bharti introduced first caller tunes service in India. Songs from Bollywood releases Main Hoon Na and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi were the first to be released as caller tunes

 It is viewed as a tool to express the personality. Hence, main reason it has become so popular is that in the current world of social media, it allows a user to express the kind of person they are and what mood they are in.

Business model

The revenue is shared among the telco, the VAS company, and the copyright owner. Typically telcos get around 50% and copyright owners 20%.The revenue from caller tunes accounts for a substantial proportion of India's Rs 900 crore music industry.

The business of caller tunes is now estimated to be worth Rs 2,000 crore in India, according to data from Bharti Airtel Ltd. Around 66 million people have used the service, known as caller ring back tones (CRBT) in industry lingo, and of this, 48 million are active paid users, who pay up to Rs 5 to download a song (and Rs 30 for a monthly membership) and make it their caller tune. The number of active users increases by between 10% and 20% a year. And almost seven of every 10 active users change their caller tune every month ( Source : Mint)

Challenges

It is the only service where user themselves do not experience the service they are paying for. Hence, getting people to change the song is difficult as they often forget what song they have subscribed to.

Another Dimension

With access getting easier and the whole ecosystem now coming together, and the entry of new technologies and smartphone devices, video linkage or caller tunes with a video aspect are not far away. 

Hence in conclusion there is massive opportunity. The market is quite challenging and with the introduction of corporate caller tunes, companies are looking forward to promote their brands using Caller tunes as a medium. Hence there is chance for music companies to formulate the new caller tUnes as per the customers requirement and Telecos can charge them for selecting that as the caller tunes on monthly basis.

Ashish Kansal                 12FN-033      +917503139500                 IMT-G