Comments on: Airtel Claims To Be India’s Largest Music Company; We Do The Math

By: Mobyte

Mobyte — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:30:17 +0000

Its interesting that Airtel is becoming like Reliance as time goes by. Claims that just dont make sense and if anything set them up for more trouble.

Firstly, they charge subscription revenues on the back of music which in no way is included as a part of the cost of music almost like what the airline industry does to avoid paying commission to travel agents. They then include it as a part of music revenues.

They are lucky that Bhushan Kumar doesnt like the PPL else there could be serious trouble for the telecom industry.

The Music industry needs to charge the mobile industry for each play on the RBT platform as it is not being consumed by the purchaser but is being used for public consumption hence a violation of terms.

The music industry should band together and shut supply, they may hurt for sometime but remember the "biggest music company" in India will hurt 3 times as much.

By: JaiHo

JaiHo — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:54:57 +0000

Sounds stupid of Airtel to claim this. They are music retailer not music company. Going by their logic: Wal-Mart should be world's largest saving company and food company and so on…

They are (by bunlding one music service subscription forcefully when you use another and so on… ) one of largest music retailers in country and not bigger than probably planetM, Music World or other stores which sell music.

How on earth Airtel CEO make such illogical comment!!

By: prachi

prachi — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:15:27 +0000

Exactly my point, the context of revenues is not correct. The figures for airtel are so high is for two reasons:first they dont share the subscription money hich is rs 15 per month per subscriber.Secondly they pocket 70% of the revenues on music generated. So my argument still is that the context is incorrect.

By: Nikhil Pahwa

Nikhil Pahwa — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:44:40 +0000

Agreed; I just thought we should try and put Airtels claims in a certain context of revenues. If you look at just the topline, a large retailer will always be bigger than a producer, right?

By: prachi

prachi — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:40:29 +0000

Nikhil I feel this is a story of comparing apples with oranges. Maybe if Airtel produced content or Saregama owned mobile platforms could it have made sense to make this comparison.

By: prachi

prachi — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:38:07 +0000

I mean to say that Nokia, world over, is trying to make the consumer pay to get rid of the boring "tring tring. Thats why they launched "comes with music" series. Internationally they have failed. They havent launched this service in India as yet. So all that we can do is wait and watch them make or lose money :)

By: prachi

prachi — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:35:49 +0000

But isnt that nokia is planning to do with its "comes with series"? :)

By: prachi

prachi — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:34:12 +0000

Thats the difference between the two. It is applicable to both, post and pre-paid subscriber base.

By: Happyman

Happyman — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:14:19 +0000

Two things:

1. Ringback tones is a huge chunk of so called "Music revenues"
2. A huge chunk of RBT revenues is actually subscription – which has nothing to do with content. I would say 85% or more of revenue would be subscription, less than 15% would be song changes.

So what?

What is being called "Music revenues" for RBT in particular is actually a service revenue. But the trouble of course, is that it is impossible to separate one from the other.

Now if Nokia/Sony Ericsson/Samsung oould charging you a monthly fee to play your ringtone of your choice as opposed to Tring-tring, imagine how much money they would make.

Did I just give away a huge business idea or what?

By: Nikhil Pahwa

Nikhil Pahwa — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:44:50 +0000

Prachi: would this be more of a function of pre-paid or post-paid subscribers? Vodafone doesn't give a number for VAS revenues, or a breakup between SMS and non-SMS, so we don't have much of a base for a comparison