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The fact that Airtel has 1 mn subscribers for its ringtones download service can be treated as an indicator of what the future holds for mobile music in India. Other operators have also shown impressive growth. Of course, the burgeoning growth in the number of overall cellular subscriber base has been one of the main contributory factors. Falling voice ARPU has also been instrumental in pushing them to offer more value added services. Added to this is the ease of download and the affordable pricing. Realizing the revenue potential of ringtone download, leading Internet companies like Yahoo and MSN have also entered into the fray, offering mobile music to cellphone users.

As full-length song download on mobile phone is not currently available in India, subscribers are going for a new set of high-end music enabled handsets. These devices come in excess of Rs 10,000. It will take a couple of years before these high-end, music capable, handheld devices will become affordable to a large population. According to an estimate, ringtone and callback tunes will generate over Rs 880 crore in revenues by the year 2007.

What's on Offer?
All cellular operators, both GSM and CDMA, offer some form of music services. Most of them have tied up with third-party content providers. Ringtones have become the most popular form of download, followed by callback tunes or caller tunes or ringback tunes. The tariff ranges from Rs 7 for a mono ringtone to Rs 10 for a polyphonic ringtone, and these are downloaded largely through SMS. Variants based on different themes are also offered. Recently, video ringtone has also been launched by some of the operators. Bharti offers its music download service through its AirTel Live. Hutch, Idea, and other operators also offer ringtone download. SMS tones are short-length tones which can be set as message alert tones. These are built around various themes ranging from movies or television shows to funny sounds, mimicry etc. CDMA operator, Reliance Infocomm, also offers ringtone downloads. It recently introduced My Tunes where subscribers can compose music. This feature, however, is inbuilt in many of the handsets-Tata Indicom, BSNL, and MTNL also offer ringtone download service.

Apart from direct offerings from service providers, there are third-party content providers who have also tied up with them to offer various ringtone downloads. Companies like Sony Entertainment (through setindia.com) also offer ringtone download service. Several portals like Rediff.com, Indiatimes.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com also offer ringtone downloads.

Musical Handsets
Leading handset vendors like Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola are trying to position their phones as musical devices. Several handsets have been launched which have integrated FM radio, besides providing MP3 support. Nokia will soon launch music phones-Nokia 3250 and Nokia N9-which are targeted at mobile music lovers. The company claims to offer a unique twist design that makes it quick and easy to switch between the music keys, the keypad, and the camera mode. The Nokia 3250 can hold 750 full-length songs (1GB of storage space). The battery is capable of playing 10 hours of continuous play. The other phone, Nokia N91, boasts of a 4GB hard disk and can store up to 3,000 tracks. SonyEriccson recently launched the Walkman Phone W800. The phone's catchline, 'The soundtrack to your life', is an indicator of the changing trends. Motorola created a wave by trying to bring the best of music and phone by integrating Apple's iTunes software with its handset sold as Rokr. Siemens even went to the extent of launching an entire mobile music division to create a music download store that operators can offer to their subscribers.

Digital Rights Issues
There are some loopholes which result in rights violation. A case in point is a subscriber who pays to downloaded a ringtone and then forwards to another subscriber using the SMS. Even infrared functionality of the handset is used to transfer ringtones from one handset to another. Suddenly, there is a surge in websites offering ringtone services to subscribers. Ideally ring tones which are available for downloading from websites are subject to Copyright Act, 1957, and it is assumed that the site owner has sought permission from the creator of the music.

What Next?
Mobile music is all set to get a further boost in India with the launch of 3G services, which will allow full length song or video download. It may be recalled that Vodafone's 3G Live service sold 1 mn full-track song downloads in the four months post launch. The challenge is for the operators to decide the right business model, subscription or per song or something else. Operators and the content providers have to work together to ensure that copyright is respected. However, the outlook is bright for the mobile operators. According to InStat, mobile music could be a bigger market than mobile games. It is not without any reason that Warner Music Group CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr, called music over cell phones the "single greatest opportunity the music industry has ever had."

Sudesh Prasad