Music sector contributes $1.2bn to India's economy

By Emmanuel Legrand

India's music-related industry was worth 8,660 crores, or $1.2 billion (8.1 times the size of the recorded music industry) in 2018, and employed over 36,800 people, according to a recent report from audit and consulting firm Deloitte.

  Deloitte's figures were obtained by aggregating the value of all the various components: recorded music sales, live music revenues, TV broadcasting, FM radio, streaming services, films and rights management organisations.

 

 

  "India is the world’s second-most populated nation and seventh-largest economy," noted Jehil Thakkar, a Partner at Deloitte India. "It has a rich cultural heritage, including a long history of diverse and engaging music. However, India stands 15th in the world in terms of music industry size. This is not in sync with India’s economic or cultural position in the world, and represents a gap – but also an opportunity to grow. Music is a powerful tool to expand India’s influence and spread awareness of many things Indian – be it yoga, tourism, or made-in-India products."

 

Positioned for growth

 

  The report shows that India's music market is positioned for growth, thanks to the development of music streaming consumption, which accounted for 70% of music industry revenues in 2018. "Digital audio streaming has been rising on the back of increasing smartphone use and decreasing data costs. In India, more than 4,440 million monthly streams are running across leading audio OTT players (including JioSaavn, Gaana, and Wynk)," reads the report.

 

  However, to realise its full potential, Deloitte listed a series of challenges that the local industry needs to overcome if it wants to achieve sustainable growth:

> Fix the piracy epidemic, in particular online piracy.

> Address the increasing value gap by adapting India's copyright regime to international standards.

> Achieve legislative and regulatory changes to achieve fair value, in particular putting an end to the statutory licensing of sound recordings.

> Obtain from music users full compliance in paying performance rights to rights holders.

> Accelerate the transition from piracy to music streaming usage, in particular towards subscription-based models.

 

  "Addressing the above challenges, initiating government-funded music-centric grants and export schemes, and seeding a performing centre ecosystem into the next blueprint of India’s smart city initiatives are some of the measures that can put the music industry on a faster growth trajectory. This, in turn, could unlock the associated amplification effects in the broader economy," concluded the report.