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Raymond Ma

Up to 5 million mobile-phone ringtones were downloaded by  Hongkongers last year, according to industry estimates.

The demand has been driven by  teenagers who idolise Canto-pop stars and their  music.

Nearly all mobile-phone companies now allow customers to download their favourite songs as ringtones,  be it the latest Joey Yung Cho-yee  tune, the theme from James Bond movies, or even Britney Spears' Oops, I did it again!

It is not unusual for melodies of local  Canto-pop songs to be heard ringing from mobile phones dangling on a chain around a youngster's neck shortly after they are released on CD.

'The mobile-phone ringtone market is very competitive,' said Geoffrey Lau Chan-ming,  head of media licensing and strategic planning at the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong.

He also expects more players to enter the ringtone-provider industry in the city.

Even though profits from ringtones are said to be slim, the tunes do not come cheap.  SmarTone Communications  charges $15 to download a music sample  for use as a ringtone on its latest Sharp GX32 handset, while CSL charges $5 to $6 for simple melodies.

More sophisticated technology allows mobile-phone carriers  to deliver more true-to-life music to  handsets. Even as the simple  melodies of monophonic ringtones - which play one note at a time - are being replaced by polyphonic-ringtone-capable handsets,  new mobile phones are being shipped with ringers that play real  music  rather than just the underlying melody.

Music industry executives worldwide  hope this  will spawn a new market,  with CD sales sliding due to piracy.

'They are potentially where the real money could be,' EMI executive director Hans Ebert  said.

Providers  will have to pay royalties to record companies, who represent the  artists, in addition to the music publishers.

Consultancy firm ARC Group estimates  US$3.47 billion worth of ringtones were downloaded worldwide last year,  a figure it  expects to  reach $5.43 billion by 2008.



Teenagers ring up high demand for phone tunes