IT doesn’t take long to realise that Martin Higginson, chief executive of Monstermob, is used to explaining his business to adults as though he were addressing children.

“Monstermob will be the global leader in mobile entertainment,” he says slowly. He flips out a presentation chart and points at large letters that read: “What is mobile entertainment?” Sure, sure, mobile ringtones is big business, I say. Everyone has heard of the Crazy Frog phenomenon.

“It’s not about ringtones,” interrupts Higginson. “We started out selling ringtones, but that was five years ago. Now the biggest thing is music. We are in the business of turning mobiles into MP3 players and making your iPod defunct. This is what the music industry doesn’t realise.”

Sensing that I am equally unenlightened, Higginson, whose bright pink tie and pointed shoes make him seem younger than his 42 years, leans forward in preparation for a demonstration. He taps his mobile phone a couple of times and suddenly the opulent tearoom at Claridge’s hotel is filled with Robbie Williams singing Angels. Higginson is unapologetic.

“Give me any track from any artist and we’ll play it on this mobile right now,” he says in a low Lancashire drawl that makes him sound almost bored.

Sound of Da Police by KRS-One, please.

For the first time, Higginson stops and looks uneasy.

“Is that a popular band?” he says accusingly. I nod smugly. “Well, it’s not on our system now but it will be tomorrow.” (It wasn’t.) Back to the flip chart, Higginson is quick to regain his ground. City investors, along with most others over the age of 25, may think of Monstermob as a business more suited to a schoolyard discussion rather than an investment committee, but the figures tell a different story.

“At the moment there are 935m internet users and 1.5 billion mobile handsets in the world,” says Higginson. “Currently, 200m mobiles have internet connectivity. By 2009, the number of phones with GPRS (the ability to carry the internet) will be 2.1 billion. The mobile will soon be the only device you need — it will be your phone, your PC and your entertainment system.

“Monstermob is essentially a media company that can provide the entertainment. As well as personalised ringtones, you can download songs, play games and place bets through us.”

Monstermob may be a minnow — its market value is £134m — but it has started to cause a stir in the City.

Since its float on the Alternative Investment Market two years ago, the company’s pre-tax profits have grown from £1.5m to an estimated £7.8m this year, sales have tripled and the share price has soared from a low of 64p to 344p.

Higginson, whose 22% stake is worth nearly £35m, says this is just the start. “Put it this way, Google and Yahoo went from zero to being worth over £1 billion in just a few years. The figures show that mobiles are going to be far bigger than this.”

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