If you missed our recent report on India and China, the writer of the Indian half has now published his piece online. In it, Ed Peto of consultancy firm Outdustry digs in to the prevailing trends of the Indian music market.
“India’s recorded music industry generated just US$0.09 per capita in trade revenues in 2016, making it the most poorly monetised music market currently being tracked,” he noted.
“An optimist would rightly point out that with a population of 1.27bn India has had more heavy lifting to do than most, and that obviously there is enormous room for growth, but even amongst the giant emerging music markets India is taking its time to emerge.”
Other reasons for concern include a mobile infrastructure that is “still not fit for purpose” although a reduction in the cost of data contracts – fuelling growth to 420 million mobile-internet users in India – offers reason for optimism.
Other key stats from Peto’s analysis: there are around 60 million monthly active users of digital music services in India at the moment; and the vast majority of India’s $72m of annual digital revenues come from lump-sum minimum guarantees (MGs) negotiated based on perceived market-share.
“In short, it is an interim digital musical economy, a transitional phase in which an over-proliferation of DSP are stuck between large label MG on the one side and a painfully-slow-to-emerge digital music economy on the other…”
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