Nielsen has released some figures for the US music industry in 2007, showing either good news (overall unit purchases are up) or bad news (album-equivalent sales are down), depending on how you look at it. PaidContent is covering that. Mobile music appears to have been combined with online to be “digital”, but Nielsen Ringscan broke out some US ringtone figures. There were 220 million ringtone purchases in 2007 resulting in sales of $567 million, and ringtone sales spiked 22 percent in the last week of the year. 91 percent of ringtone sales were mastertones, and the top 100 mastertones sold 65.1 million, accounting for 30 percent of ringtone sales.

• Ringtone On The Wane Globally