Digitalization of music
Up until the mid-2000s, music distribution in India was primarily in the form of cassette tapes and CDs, with radio and television being the main channels of marketing. Additionally, the exponential penetration of mobile phones gave birth to one of the biggest revenue streams of the music industry - caller ring back tones.As one of the largest internet markets in the world with cheap data plans, India was quick to adopt and adapt to music streaming with both global and indigenous platforms vying to have the listener’s ear. Streaming activity spiked further during the COVID-19 pandemic and the industry was sustained by a boom in independent artists on these platforms. Among them, YouTube was the most popular music streaming platform and T-Series, Indian music record label had the highest number of views as of 2022. The emerging popularity of short-form videos presented tremendous marketing potential for musicians.
