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Polyphonic Ringtone Download Service for AT&T Wireless
Yamaha Ringtones Service begins in late July 2003 |
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Example display of "YAMAHA Ringtones"
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YAMAHA CORPORATION (Head office: Nakazawa-cho, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka; President: Shuji Ito) has announced today that it has launched Yamaha Ringtones, a polyphonic ringtone download service for NEC mobile phones. The service is now available to customers of AT&T Wireless (Head office: Washington, U.S.A.; CEO: John D. Zeglis), the third-largest mobile service provider in the United States. The Yamaha Ringtones service represents the second time that YAMAHA has launched the ringing melody distribution service to U.S. markets.
The United States has 268 million population, of which 140 million are mobile phone subscribers. With approximately 15% of the market, or 21.1 million subscribers, AT&T Wireless is the third largest mobile service provider. Sales of handsets with polyphonic ringtone capability are expected to increase in the United States. Moreover, demand for high quality polyphonic ringtone service is also increasing as users in the United States become more accustomed to such ringing melody options.
Designed for use with the Company's high-quality polyphonic sound chip terminals (MA3 Terminals), the Yamaha Ringtones service provides ringtones in the SMAF* format(Synthetic music Mobile Application Format), Yamaha's proprietary audio-visual data format for sound generation, to enable the playback of enhanced and enriched of ringing melodies. Targeting a broad range of subscribers between the ages of 10 and 40, our planned music catalog includes the latest U.S. pop hits, rock, oldies, classic rock, R&B, jazz, and Latin melodies as well as country, folk, classical, dance, movie and musical soundtracks, and hymns. YAMAHA believes it can penetrate the huge U.S. market by providing content suited to market demand.
The Yamaha Ringtones service represents a vigorous effort to expand our business through the distribution of ringing melodies to mobile phone subscribers in the United States. The distribution platform for the service is being developed by Theta Music Technologies, Inc., (head office: Tokyo, Minato-ku; Web site: www.thetamusic.com), while copyright management will be handled by our U.S.-based subsidiary Yamaha Music InterActive Inc.
*SMAF is a data format capable of producing and delivering a range of audio-visual content. YAMAHA disclosed specifications for SMAF graphic and audio tracks in May 2001. |
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| Service Overview |
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| Service |
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Yamaha Ringtones |
| Description |
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polyphonic ringing melody distribution service for mobile phone users |
| Launch |
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July 21, 2003 |
| Music selection |
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U.S. pop hits from the 1950s to the present as well as rock, classic rock, hymns, country, dance/techno, hip hop, jazz, Latin, movie and musical soundtracks, R&B, TV theme songs, music box melodies (500 ringtones at launch) |
| Price |
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$1.99 per ringtone (approximately ¥235) *Calculated at a rate of ¥118 = US$1 |
| First-year sales target |
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¥ 130M |
| Type of carrier |
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GSM |
| Terminal |
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At launch, NEC 515 HDM terminal with YAMAHA MA3 sound chip; at a later date, expand to support more terminals. |
| Distribution method |
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| 1. |
Sold through mMode, an AT&T Wireless Internet connection and information service. |
| 2. |
In the second half of August 2003, song catalog and other information regarding the service will be available on YAMAHA's own Internet site. |
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| AT&T Wireless Profile |
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| Official name |
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AT&T Wireless |
| Established |
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1994 |
| Representative |
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John D. Zeglis, Chairman and CEO |
| Description |
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AT&T Wireless, a subsidiary of AT&T, has 21.1 million subscribers (as of March 31, 2003), more than 500 operating bases in the United States, and approximately 31,000 employees. In fiscal 2003, revenues amounted to US$15.6 billion (approximately ¥1,840.8 billion based on an exchange rate of ¥118 = US$1 on December 31, 2002). For more information, please visit http://www.attwireless.com. |
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For further information, please contact
Yamaha Corporation
Corporate Communications Group,
Public Relations Division
Mr. Tanaka, Mr.Seki, or Mr. Hagiwara
TEL. +81-3- 5488-6601
FAX +81-3-5488-5060
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