Thanks to the mobile consumer’s love for changing tunes every few days, mobile operators are singing all the way to the bank. Popularity of ringtones in India cuts across all age groups. The frequency of downloads varies from person to person, with some subscribers changing ringtones every week, and teenie boppers switching as often as twice or thrice a week. Apart from mobile operators, music companies are also reaping the benefits of this growing fad.

Internationally, the size of the market for mobile ringtones is estimated to have grown from around $450m in ’03 to $1.5bn in ’04. In India, though, the ringtone market rang in a modest Rs 30 crore last year. “During the current year, we expect the ringtone market to grow by 55-65%”, according to Praveen Rajpal, CEO, Handygo.

His Delhi based company is keeping pace with the rising popularity for ringtones following its dreams of becoming one of the world market’s 'big boys' - an ambition that is not unfounded, considering its track record for innovation and its knack for the business with industry giants like Yahoo, Indiatimes, Rediff, IMIMobile and Onmobile as its clients. A prominent player in the field, it prides itself as India`s pioneer premier mobile entertainment content provider and application platform provider.

The services offered under the umbrella of Handygo's Mobile Entertainment Universe currently include ringtone (monophonic, polyphonic and true tones) and graphics (animated sms, logos, wallpapers, funky sms and video clips) downloads, SMS and Java-based games, subscription-based content such as horoscopes, jokes, sports updates as well as chat and dating services which are developed in-house with one of world’s most efficient team.

Handygo’s services are not confined to India alone. More than 80 per cent of Handygo's business in fact comes from outside its home base. The company's offerings are available to a potential consumer base to millions of mobile phone users spanning the key markets of Middle East and U.K .It is also considering capturing a share of the Europe and US mobile markets.