LAS VEGAS—CTIA Wireless 2008 marks the “coming out” party of sorts for Zed USA, which is the combination of 9 Squared and Zed.
9 Squared, the company behind RingToneJukebox.com, was acquired by Zed last year as part of its Monstermob acquisition. While 9 Squared primarily has been focused on working direct from the Tier 2 and 3 carrier decks, Zed’s strategy is more direct to consumer. Going forward, Zed USA will take a dual-pronged approach, according to Ted Suh, chief marketing officer at Zed USA.
While some industry pundits lament the ringtone market has flattened, Suh says there’s still plenty of opportunity outside the usual hip-hop. Christian, Latin and country are some of the genres where there’s room for growth, he says. The youth market represented early adopters, but other segments of the population have yet to discover ringtones.
More ringtones are sold than ringback tones, but that’s because consumers usually need an added subscription service to enable ringbacks, he says, and the content catalog for ringbacks is smaller. It’s still a lot easier to get a ringtone, with the exception of some operators; Verizon Wireless, for example, makes it easy to get ringbacks, he says. Other carriers have additional steps the customer needs to do, and that impedes adoption.
Zed Group is based in Madrid, Spain, and has a big presence in Europe and Asia. Until the Monstermob acquisition, it had a limited presence in the U.S. market. But Suh says now that 9 Squared has transitioned into Zed USA, you can expect to see a lot more content deals in the coming weeks and months.
Incidentally, rapper T-Pain alone is responsible for “unbelievable” ringtone sales. “Hip-hop by far is the largest selling genre,” Suh says. The next top seller is rock.