I may not have believe this before, I will admit to it now - there is a huge future for mobile music. The piece below illustrates this I think.

The trend of personalizing one’s mobile phone with music has proved quite lucrative for the world’s record labels.

Ringtones, once dismissed as nothing more than a passing fad, have become a $3 billion worldwide market. But it’s a market that is nearing maturation, with growth rates expected to fall to about 20% this year after doubling in 2005.

As a result, labels are now preparing different types of music clips they hope consumers will buy to personalize other mobile phone features.

“There’s a lot of potential to provide great music personalization beyond the ringtone,” says one major-label source, who asked not to be identified, citing sensitivities of ongoing negotiations with wireless operators.

Within a matter of weeks, several wireless operators are expected to introduce musical “alert tones” — a snippet of a song lasting between two and five seconds, that users can assign to play when they receive incoming text messages and voice mail, similar to a ringtone…. Source: Reuters

Tags: wireless, music, mobile, operators, negotiations