With digital evolution, the entertainment industry in India is set to boom in the coming years. And, with that the famous label Saregama India has uniquely placed itself in the content-creation web.
Apparently, the music label Saregama India has the largest record of sound recording and publishing copyrights in the country across 14 various languages. Now, being a pure-play content company which is headquartered in Kolkata, the company wants to capitalize on the low data prices and the evolving markets for smartphones in India, where the ongoing pandemic situation has only elevated digital adoption in the past 15 months.
On Thursday, Saregama India reported that the company has seen a jump of approximately 73.4% in its consolidated net profit which amounts to Rs. 27.33 crore for the June quarter. This has been backed by the enormous consumption of content on the digital platform during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown span.
The company also reported a net profit of Rs. 15.76 crore in the April-June quarter last financial period. This trend is only expected to rise in the coming days and Saregama has now decided to ride on the wave of digitalization.
As per the financial year 2020-2021, here are the five insights on the music entertainment industry that the Indian label Saregama is vouching on.
- Players are striving for its content
Well, everybody is aware of the position that Saregama holds in the unique content-creation ecosystem and the giant company counts its strength in marketing, product development, investments in data analytics, and also a 30000-solid retail network.
And, now the company is pinning its ambitions on 3 aspects, which are:
- Creating new IP
- Monetizing the existing IP
- Direct-to-Customer retail business
In a recent interview, the company officials have said that over the next decade, more than two dozen well-funded audio and video OTT platforms shall fight amongst themselves and with the existing 360 radio stations and 900 TV stations for the audience’s money and time. The weapon of choice here in this war shall be the content.
- Digital finance is booming
Saregama India illustrated how digital revenues have grown exponentially in the music industry on a global platform. The income from the physical channels has dropped to 81% on an absolute basis. As per the Global Music 2021 Report released by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, the revenue has decreased from $23 billion in 2001 to $4.2 billion in 2020.
However, in contrast to that, the streaming revenues have increased substantially from approximately $100 million in 2005 to 413.4 billion in 2020, which speaks the future of the industry.
- India Music Industry anchors the global market
Lending on increased digital incomes, synchronization rights, and other performance rights, the Indian music industry has been evolving rapidly since 2015. Saregama noted that the digital video business has been growing steadily on the back of higher advertising platforms like YouTube and also on the faster adoption of the subscription-rooted giant platforms like Disney Hotstar, Netflix, and others.
Over the course, the company has been preparing itself to draw the benefits of the explosion in digital media and as per the latest reports, Saregama India has digitized its complete catalog consisting of 130000 songs and has also built rich metadata behind it.
The Saregama officials stated that the digital landscape has somehow allowed them to put out their music everywhere, unhindered by the constraints of the conventional brick-and-mortar distribution network.
- Use the Analytics
Saregama India has stated that it structured a solid data analytics tool around 100 billion annual song usage data points. And, the company added that the predictive models that were built on the back of data analytics have helped them sharpen their ability to choose the right song at the right cost from the market.
- Audio Streaming collects big bucks
Saregama India noted that the consistent growth of the digital infrastructure has paved the way for incredible growth in the audio streaming area. The leading music streaming platforms like JioSaavn and Gaana have estimated their number of monthly active users to be somewhere between 150 million and 200 million.
The company put out a statement saying that currently, Saregama charges the platforms on a per-stream basis, along with a share of advertising revenues for the advertising-based free service. It also added that their revenue from this particular segment has been only growing at a 40% rate over the past three years!
Furthermore, Saregama noted that if the paid subscriber base of the music streaming apps in India increases from the current 2% to 5-6% in the coming years then the digital income can propel the necessary growth to elevate the Indian music market towards an overall 20% growth.
This will certainly result in a massive revenue opportunity for Saregama India as contractually; the company also gets a share of subscription revenue from the various platforms. The company added that the digital revolution has been impacting the entertainment industry for quite some time now but now it is all set to boom beyond imagination!