Jinny boosts Zain’s ROI with ringback tones

Leading supplier of personalised messaging and media processing platforms to mobile network operators, Jinny Software, has delivered to Zain Africa a ringback tone server that boosted is Return on Investment (ROI) within 10 days of completion, even as eight per cent of subscribers hooked to ringback tones within one month.

ITRealms Online recalls that Third Generation (3G) mobile operator, Zain Nigeria, in early 2008 sealed a deal with Dublin-based Jinny Software Limited to deliver ringback tones and Voice Short Messaging Services (VSMS) to its teeming subscribers, according to the regional director, Middle East, Africa and Asia (MEAA) at Jinny Software Limited, Mr. Aniket Deuskar, who disclosed this at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona-Spain to our correspondent.

A press statement made available to ITRealms Online by Jinny Software indicated that the initial 8 per cent uptake by the 4.5-million subscriber base on the continent, meant the operator was able to re-coup initial capital outlay, rapidly, within a 10-day period, through additional revenues generated from Ringback Tone subscriptions and tones purchased from its stable.

Officials of Jinny also said that the service allows mobile subscribers to reflect their personality by setting a preferred Ringback Tone for callers to hear before their call is answered.

“It replaces the normal ringtone heard when placing a call to someone, with a popular ringtone, a sound-clip, or a self-recorded message,” part of the statement read.

Navigation through the system, the official said, is guided by a free-to-access interactive voice response (IVR) system, which allows subscribers to subscribe, unsubscribe, dedicate, replace, record, personalise and manage their music box and assign different ring tones to different caller identity, even as it could be effect through Short Messaging Service (SMS). 

After only one year from service launch, the Zain Group operator currently has 450,000 active subscribers to the Ringback Tone service, representing 10 per cent of its total subscriber base.

“Subscription to the service is charged on a monthly basis and costs approximately US$0.45 per month. Each song or tone purchased costs US$0.45 and lasts for 60 days and renewal cost per song/tone is US$0.45,” Jinny official said.

While content is organised into eight different categories of ringback tones, including top ten, local language tones, Middle East-specific tones such as Islamic, Arabic and Khaliji tones, English tones, as well as a variety of other content.

“The availability of local language and Arabic content is of crucial importance to the success of this service and drives Ringback Tone content sales. The operator sells, on average, 300,000 tones each month,” they said.

Additionally, Jinny official said that the Ringback Tone solution was initially set up to support a small subscriber base, but quickly grew to support the rapidly increased service demand.

“The modular structure of Jinny’s Ringback Tone solution means that any additional capacity requirement can be supported by adding additional media gateways, as and when required,” he said.

ITRealms Online recalls that Jinny Software signed a framework agreement earlier in 2008 to become the preferred supplier of Ringback Tone Servers to the Zain Group in Africa and across the Middle East, following a very detailed technical and commercial evaluation.

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