Ringtones no longer ringing the tills

The days of making easy money from ringtones short clips of music for mobile phones are over.

What has been a hugely profitable business is coming under pressure from a narrowing of the craze to a smaller group of mostly younger people， a shift in the nature of ringtones themselves， and growing competition among distributors.

In the UK and other European countries， where the fad first took hold， many of the people who once paid￡2 ($3.5) or more for a 10-second clip have given up buying ringtones，said Chris Jones， an analyst at Canalys，a technology industry consultancy： People were doing it because it was a new thing to do. That has worn off with a big part of the market. In the US， where the business is at a much earlier stage，the craze appears to have stalled even before it has reached a mass market. Only about one in 10 mobile subscribers is buying ringtones. That is the same proportion as a year ago，according to InfoSpace，a US ringtone company that claims 47 percent of the US market， though it adds that reliable statistics about the market are difficult to come by.examda

At the same time， the new band of distributors that sprang up to sell ringtones is finding the fat profits much harder to come by. Users are starting to switch away from the familiar polyphonic renditions of famous tunes to short clips of the original music known in the industry as truetones or realtones.

Most of the profits from these go straight to the record labels， not the middlemen who made a killing from earlier， cruder versions.

一、參考譯文

靠一小段手機音樂鈴聲輕松賺錢的日子已經過去了

這一迄今利潤豐厚的業務正面臨壓力，原因包括：對鈴聲狂熱的群體在縮小，目前多數是年紀比較小的人;鈴聲的性質發生了變化;以及經銷商之間的競爭日益加劇。

高科技行業咨詢公司Canalys分析師克里斯。瓊斯(Chris Jones)說，英國和其它歐洲是手機鈴聲熱潮的發源地，這里的許多年輕人此前曾為了一段10秒鐘的鈴聲花上2英鎊(合3.5美元)或更多錢，現在他們不再購買鈴聲。“人們當時這么做，是因為它是個新鮮事物?，F在人們對此興趣逐漸淡薄，很大一塊市場隨之消失?！痹诿绹謾C鈴聲業務還處在相當初級的階段，鈴聲熱潮甚至在席卷大眾市場前就已停滯不前。僅有十分之一的手機用戶在購買音樂鈴聲。美國手機鈴聲公司InfoSpace稱，這一比例與一年前相同，盡管它補充指出，難以取得關于這一市場的可靠數據。InfoSpace據稱占據美國47%的鈴聲市場?？荚嚧?/p>

同時，出現一批新的鈴聲經銷商，它們正逐漸發現，現在要實現高額利潤比以前難多了。用戶從熟悉的著名曲子的“和弦”演奏轉向原版的音樂短片斷，后者在業內稱為“真實鈴聲”(truetone)或“原音鈴聲”(realtone)。

來自這些鈴聲的大部分利潤直接進了唱片公司的口袋，而不是中間商。此前這些中間商依靠比較粗糙的鈴聲賺了一大筆錢。

二、重點詞匯

clip n.夾子，回形針，子彈夾

vt.夾住，剪短，修剪

profitableadj.有利可圖的

distributorn.發行人

analystn.分析家，分解者

consultancy n.顧問(工作)

subscriber n.訂戶，簽署者，捐獻者

proportionn.比例，均衡，面積，部分

vt.使成比例，使均衡，分攤

polyphonicadj.有許多聲音的，對位法的，復調的

rendition n.表演，演唱，翻譯