Collecting society BMI estimates the ringback market for the period will be worth $181m (?113.9m), a drop from $195m (?122.6m) a year earlier.

BMI revealed the numbers at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications Show in San Francisco. It added that pre-pay services sold between 2.75 and 3.5 ringbacks per subscriber in Q1 2010. This is compared to between 0.25 and 0.5 ringbacks per subscriber on traditional monthly billed services.

BMI SVP of corporate strategy, communications and new media Richard Conlon ...