Top-Selling Ringtone "Buy U a Drank" Hits 2.3 Million Downloads

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 23, 2007 - 11:05am.

Denver - The best-selling ringtone of 2007 to date is "Buy U a Drank" by R&B artist T-Pain, which has sold over 2.3 million units, Billboard reported, citing data from Nielsen RingScan. That figure is nearly double the 1.6 million digital downloads of the song that have been sold, and far outnumbers the 686,000 copies of the album, "Epiphany," from which the single comes.

The sales data is similar to figures from T-Pain's last album, which sold 597,000 copies, while the single, "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" sold more than 5 million ringtones, Billboard said.

To capitalize on the popularity of these ringtones, which can make up over 40% of major labels' digital revenue, some, like Jive Records, often release multiple versions.

The ringtone for "Stripper" had five versions, some featuring collaborations with Mike Jones and Paul Wall, while "Drank" has six versions, including ones that feature Kanye West and Yung Joc.

"I didn't know any song could generate ringtone sales like that," T-Pain told Billboard. "I didn't think the ringtone game could be so essential to the industry… As long as someone wants to hear my music, I don't care if it's a ringtone or the album or whatever."

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/39na22 (Reuters)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_RingScan

http://www.t-pain.net