E-commerce for digital content such as music and cell-phone ring tones will drive microcommerce—online purchases of $5 or less—into a multibillion dollar industry, predicts Gartner Inc.

Users of mobile applications already spend $570 million on ring tones, logos and screen savers annually, the company finds. By 2015, Gartner says, microcommerce for new products and services below $5 will generate between $60 billion (Gartner puts a 70% probability on hitting that mark) and $240 billion (60% probability) in revenue annually. E-commerce Websites and mobile commerce wireless networks are the major enablers of this trend. And music sales are rising thanks to the sky-rocketing popularity of portable digital music players such as Apple's iPod.

Garter suggests companies think in new ways and consider microcommerce as a new opportunity to increase revenue in cases where a mobile-phone or Web infrastructure exists to create a viable business model. Web E-payment providers should establish partnerships and leverage the edge they have through their sophisticated infrastructure in IP, it says.