@ Contenido Movil: Mobile Music In LatAm

The first talk at Contenido Movil was about mobile music in Latin America, and was focused on ringtones (as the most widely distributed form of mobile music). According to Leila Cobo, bureau chief latin for Billboard, claimed that latin american ringtone growth has been explosive, and through around the figure of about 200% per month. Most of the market is monophonic and polyphonic ringtones with national anthems and team songs being extremely popular. In the US latin music is not a big player on the ringtone charts but it’s expected to grow fast because the latin demographic is the fastest growing in the US, and more importantly are an increasing portion of the youth market. Cobo said that a problem with ringtone adoption in Latin America was the availability of local content: “It was a question of having places where people could get the content in spanish, or have a bilingual site to go to and have very specific content for them.”
Jorge Mejia, director of new business at Sony/ATV music (a publisher) said “one stumbling block has been licensing models and everyone agreeing to what we’re charging but eventually it will all be resolved”.
Steve Zinik, CTO of Interop Technologies, thinks that network-based services such as ringback tones have a big advantage in the LatAm market because the service can be offered immediately to the entire subscriber base…there aren’t any concerns about the quality of handsets. “It’s also viral, once that youth demo gets into the swing of it it’ll take off”, he said.
He’s got a vested interest (Interop market ringback tones and karaoke tones) but I tend to agree with him. Even if people can’t afford a high-end handset or expensive plan a significant proportion will be willing to shell out a few bucks for such content. Also, it requires only a very small take up to be profitable…

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