Wynk Music Plans Foray Into Distribution Ecosystem; to Invest Rs. 100 Crore to Promote Music Talent

Airtel's Wynk Music will invest Rs. 100 crore to promote music talent through its platform as part of foraying into the distribution ecosystem for independent artists based in India and overseas. Airtel Digital CEO Adarsh Nair on Thursday said the creator economy for music is at a nascent stage but poised to grow significantly.

"With Wynk Studio, we are building a platform that allows an aspiring musician to pursue their passion and earn income at the same time. We are looking to attract talent from across the world and scale the platform to 5,000 artists in the next one year," he said in a statement.

Wynk Studio has over 100 artists on the platform from India, Singapore and the United States. Some of the artists, including Nishad Patki from Pune, Gagan Baderiya from Bengaluru and Harsha Prawin from Hyderabad are doing over a million streams each.

The studio will enable artists to launch their music and will also partner them in monetising their music on a host of platforms.

"Wynk has also earmarked a sum of Rs. 100 crore to promote local talent on the application and enable their discovery," the statement said.

According to the statement, the Indian music industry is at an inflection point with Indians on an average spending about 21 hours per week listening to music as against a global average of 18 hours.

"Almost 30 percent of the top performing songs across any music platform in India are today from independent artists and these independent artists are all set to drive the growth of the industry by 50 percent from roughly Rs. 2,000 crore at the moment to Rs. 3,000 crore by 2025," it added.