Airtel plans to tap mobile users outside its network

Company launches cross-network music app, plans more such to boost data revenue

Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest cellular telephone operator, with 200-plus million subscribers, is hoping to also tap consumers outside its network with an over-the-top application.

The Sunil Mittal-led company, on Tuesday, launched Wynk — a music application developed in partnership with BSB. The app is expected to become an alternative revenue stream, with an increase in focus on data revenues.

This is the first time any cellular operator has launched an across-operator music app, also platform agnostic. An instant messaging application, Hike, is owned by Bharti Enterprises and Bharti SoftBank, and is open for all networks and devices. Bharti Enterprises partly owns BhartiAirtel.

Wynk, with a collection of 1.7 million songs in eight languages, will be free of advertisements. Bharti Airtel will generate revenue from subscriptions and downloads. At the initial launch price, it will be available at Rs 99 on Android, Rs 60 on iOS and Rs 29 for Airtel customers. Streaming is free of cost but users will have to pay the data charges. Downloading a song would cost Rs 5, including the data charge.

Bharti Airtel earlier offered music services through Airtel Music as a value-added service (VAS). Wynk will primarily compete with other music apps such as Gaana, Saavn, Nokia’s online music store and Apple’s iTunes.

Universal is one of the partners for Bharti Airtel’s Wynk. “We will share part of the revenue generated from the music streaming and downloads. However, the key here is that these initiatives will reduce piracy,” said Srinivasan Gopalan, director (consumer business), Bharti Airtel. He wouldn’t reveal how much the company would pay to content providers like Universal.

Caller tunes contribute about 20 per cent of a telecom operator’s VAS revenue.

VAS accounts for about 18 per cent of a teleco’s service revenue. Mobile data contributed 12.4 per cent (a 74 per cent growth against the comparable period) of Bharti Airtel’s total India revenue in the quarter ended June.

Experts say the music industry gets about 30 per cent of telcos’ revenue collection from caller tunes. According to data with the department of telecommunications, Bharti Airtel earned Rs 2,088 crore from caller tunes in the three years ended March 2012.

Gopalan said Wynk, combined with data schemes, will drive growth and get a boost once Airtel use its physical distribution network to get more users. According to studies, a person spends about 30 full days (24 hours a day) in a year listening to music. Of this, about 90 per cent is on mobile devices, said Anand Chandrasekharan, chief product officer (consumer business), Bharti Airtel. He is part of the team which developed Wynk.

About a dozen of devepoers spent a little more than six months to do this.

There could be more such applications from Bharti’s stable in the coming months. “Globally,there are six verticals that drive data consumption. Gaming, videos and e-commerce could be the areas where we might focus,” said Gopalan.

The move would eventually get Airtel ready with services suited for fourth generation (4G) networks.

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• Bharti Airtel launched Wynk — a music application developed in partnership with Bharti SoftBank
• The app is expected to become an alternative revenue stream, with an increase in focus on data revenues
• At the initial launch price, it will be available at Rs 99 on Android, Rs 60 on iOS and Rs 29 for Airtel customers
• Streaming is free of cost but users will have to pay the data charges
• Experts say the music industry gets about 30% of telcos’ revenue collection from caller tunes
• According to DoT data, the firm made Rs 2,088 cr from caller tunes in the 3 years ended March 2012