There Are Two Ways To Overtake

I was cynical when Orange released figures saying games had overtaken ringtones (no really, I actually was cynical, believe it or not). There are two obvious ways market A might overtake market B - a healthy way (A grows faster than B) or an unhealthy way (B shrinks to become smaller than A). Orange did not make it at all clear which it was.

Now we have Gfk M2 (catchy name) claiming the UK spent £83m on games over the twelve months ending March 2007, overtaking ringtones for the first time which made £76m in the same period. All well and good, but... the UK ringtones market in 2005 made £177m. So I think it's pretty clear what the causes for this "impressive" overtaking scenario are.

Maybe people should stop getting so excited about news management without engaging their brains first. The big question is - will Orange be making such a big song and dance about it's mobile content figures next year? It never bothered to publish them in such detail before...