Updated: Indian Digital Music Sales To Surpass Physical Format This Year: Study
The digital music business, dominated by mobile music, will surpass physical music in sales in India, says a study by digital music company Soundbuzz. The report further notes that India is likely to be the second country in the world, after South Korea, where digital music will surpass physical music in sales.
Soundbuzz’s analysis further projects that the music industry will grow to Rs 4,100 crore in 2009 from Rs 1,450 crore in 2005. And this growth will be mainly driven by by mobile music, which will account for 88 per cent of the music industry’s revenues. Mobile music will be driven by all formats like ringtones, ringback tones, full track audio and video downloads.
The study, however, says that online music sales will remain minimal for the next three years.
(click to enlarge)
Nikhil adds:
Apropos the source of the data, Melissa Donnelly, Regional Communications Director at Soundbuzz clarifies:
The global and Asia Pacific sales information was sourced from a number of IFPI reports plus PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Entertainment & Media Outlook. The Indian market numbers were obtained from the Indian music industry and Soundbuzz’s own sales data.
Posted In: Entertainment, Music
Newsletter
Comments (7)
Jan 19, 2007 6:00 AM
Hmmm…
Do i hear talking up numbers, funding, investors, IPO…
There are lies, damned lies and then in a category of their own are statistics.
Jan 19, 2007 11:05 AM
May I be the second to call BS on this. Ive been involved with some people negotiating for Mobil e Music Rights, and this might happen, but than again pigs might fly out of my butt.
Jan 19, 2007 11:12 AM
Hey, we take your point and are generally sceptical about studies/surveys…We also know that Soundbuzz is not an independent research company but an affected party who has interest in the business.
We put that up for public debate, anyways.
In my personal opinion, it’s unlikely legal digital music can beat pirated music industry revenues.
Jan 19, 2007 12:29 PM
Piracy is king ...and has been forever, technology just makes it easier. I remember in the late 80’s everyone would get mixed tapes made from specialty stores more than buying tapes or cds.
Mobile music probably has a brighter future in India than elsewhere…. the vast majority people here will prefer to use a single device as phone and as music player, even if the UI isnt as easy as an Ipod….but to outdo physical sales in 2007? Does not even deserve to be called wishful thinking.
Jan 20, 2007 1:07 AM
I havent heard even one of my thousand friends download a song or a ringtone or whatever “legally”... wonder where they get these stories from….
I think its high time we have Right to Information for Private enterprises too…to find out how they get this kind of data….
Jan 20, 2007 7:37 PM
“The study, however, says that online music sales will remain minimal for the next three years.” - Perhaps true. However, online music downloads of Indian music should go up, I would imagine?
In a country like India where every film is a musical, the entire culture is musically oriented. Every third Indian I know sings. How can this population not wake up to the potential of digital music?
Jan 21, 2007 10:31 AM
I think many many people in India, are already listening to mp3 songs, in different players like PC, phones, web (streaming), etc. But when it comes to revenue generation from this service, this might be a daunting task to convince the buyer to buy music online, as they can easily get it from a friend, who might have purchased the CD, or download the same from the net, using P2P technology.
But then many users are not aware of these, and these back-door technologies, and they may well be the targeted client.
If a person is savvy enough to download mp3, store it and write it onto a CD, or transfer it to his mobile phone, he may well take the next step of getting the songs from unpaid sources.
I think the crux of the matter may lie ultimately in the pricing of the songs, where very low prices will dissuade users not to go into the trouble of doing all the above, and also remain on the “legal” side, etc.
Ultimately the online music companies may have to follow the paradigm “To earn more, charge less”.