The South African music mogul who became the “father of the ringtone”

Ralph Simon has become known not only as one of the biggest names in the global music industry but also as one of the mobile sector’s all-time greats and the father of the modern-day ringtone.

Simon was born in Johannesburg, where he grew up, and eventually attended the University of Witwatersrand.

While working at EMI Records South Africa, a British multinational record label, he met Clive Calder, an artists and repertoire (A&R) agent.

Calder and Simon went on to form Clive Calder Production (CCP) soon afterwards, which is best known for discovering artists such as Brenda Fassie, Mandoza, Chicco Twala, Aba Shant, and Arthur Mafokate.

While working at CCP, Calder and Simon met Robert Lange. Opposing the apartheid regime, the three moved to the UK and formed Zomba Records, named after a town in Malawi.

Because they knew little about the British music scene, the three decided to establish Zomba as a publishing and management company rather than a recording label.

By choosing this path, Zomba could focus on managing artists and publishing music instead of the more costly endeavour of creating, marketing and distributing it.

Lange’s development as a songwriter and producer also gave Zomba a lot of credibility.

He was best known for working with rock acts such as Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, and AC/DC, for whom Lange produced Back in Black, which sold 50 million units globally.

Henri Bololo was one of the first acts signed by Zomba after being rejected by several record labels in the country. Bololo went on to form the group The Village People.

By 1978, Clive and Ralph had taken Zomba to New York, where they established offices.

Here, Zomba’s record label Jive achieved incredible success in the upcoming music scenes, such as hip-hop and R&B, discovering artists such as A Tribe Called Quest and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

The Fresh Prince, also known as Will Smith, would eventually strike out on his own.

Calder bought out Simon’s 50 stake in Zomba following an “ethical disagreement.” By this time, the business was valued at over $225 million, or R4.5 billion by today’s standards.

Simon continued in the music industry until 1997, serving as executive vice president of Capitol Records and Blue Note Records and forming EMI’s global media division.

After noticing how pervasive mobile devices were becoming throughout society and that they would become indispensable networking and music companions, he pivoted into the mobile sector with his startup, Yourmobile.

The company acquired the first ringtone rights from US and UK music publishers, two countries Simon knew very well. Thus, it became the first commercial ringtone company in Europe, the UK, Australia, Africa, and the Americas.

This earned him the title of the “Father of the Ringtone.”

In 2003, Yourmobile was sold to Vivendi, a French media conglomerate, and the company was renamed Moviso.

Simon founded the Mobilium Global group two years earlier, where his business interests have remained ever since.

Mobilium provides “high-level strategic counsel and guidance to brands, media companies and professional organisations across the entire mobile spectrum.”

This entails expanding mobile social media presence to maximise mobile profile attention by distributing and marketing mobile media technology, applications, and content.

Clients include telcos, handset manufacturers, healthcare organisations, cities, movie studios, and TV networks.

During the late 2000s, Simon served as the mobile producer for three of history’s most significant live broadcast events.

These were Live 8, a string of concerts in the G8 states and South Africa that preceded the G8 conference in 2005, and Bono and Sir Bob Geldof’s nine-city global concert.

During the latter, they brought mobile connectivity to all nine cities and attracted 800 million viewers across television, radio, and live streaming.

Simon also worked on Love Earth, a series of concerts held on 7 July 2007 in twelve cities to raise climate change awareness.

These events helped set the standard for integrating mobile technology into live productions by integrating a mobile/SMS layer.

In 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2010, Mobile Entertainment Magazine named Simon one of the world’s top 50 executives.

In 2013, he was appointed the official global ambassador for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), a US trade body for the wireless communications industry.

Later that year, Mobilium launched Smart Health Hub, the first pan-African mobile health delivery network. This was eventually licensed to Samsung.

Today, Mobilium, headquartered in London, has offices worldwide, including Mumbai, Helsinki, Los Angeles, and Johannesburg.