Earnings: WMG Faces The Music On Falling Ringtone Sales

Ringtone sales, once a promising spot for music labels, have been falling, as research from SNL Kagan showed just how poorly the space was faring. Earlier, WMG Chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman said WMG was a victim of flagging ringtone sales as well. The slackening demand for ringtones was partially responsible for lower international digital unit sales in Q2, especially in Japan.

?Mobile hopes: As a result of the softness in ringtone revs, WMG's U.S. mobile unit sales slipped 7 percent. Bronfman said that, over time, the company expects new sources of mobile revenue to come from over-the-air downloads, subscription services and access models, which he hopes will compensate for the shift away from ringtones. As for the progress on those different revenue streams, Bronfman told analysts: "We are monitoring the progress of recently launched services that are based on access models which bundle the purchase of a mobile device with access to music, such as Nokia's Comes with Music and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Spain's new mobile access plan." Transcript (via Seeking Alpha). More coverage of WMG's Q2 earnings available on our sister site, paidContent.org, here.

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