The 'on-demand' digital download been introduced in India by 'Addkiosk' in Chennai. According to this news item, they are claiming to have around 100,000 music tracks under various categories. Users can visit these kiosks installed in place like retail stores, railway stations, malls and download their favorite music. The company has invested a whopping Rs 60 million for this service. I am not sure how easily ROI will happen for such businesses in India.
If we look from optimistic perspective, increasing mobile phones can be a huge target for such services. People won't mind paying 4-5 rupees per song and download into their handsets. But how many of them will actually use this service? Who is the exact target customer? If urban folks are the target customers, they can very well download music from internet for FREE. If they target music lovers, number of download will be less. Also the rural Indians are not very comfortable using such devices (my mother still not comfortable using bank ATMs). As their main revenue is dependent on volume of download, I am not sure where it is going to come from.
The iTunes business model worked in the US mainly because of strict laws against piracy. In countries like India, imposing them would be extremely difficult task. While it’s exciting to see such 'cool' technologies getting deployed in India, only time will tell the success of such devices. But I am extremely skeptical about it.
If we look from optimistic perspective, increasing mobile phones can be a huge target for such services. People won't mind paying 4-5 rupees per song and download into their handsets. But how many of them will actually use this service? Who is the exact target customer? If urban folks are the target customers, they can very well download music from internet for FREE. If they target music lovers, number of download will be less. Also the rural Indians are not very comfortable using such devices (my mother still not comfortable using bank ATMs). As their main revenue is dependent on volume of download, I am not sure where it is going to come from.
The iTunes business model worked in the US mainly because of strict laws against piracy. In countries like India, imposing them would be extremely difficult task. While it’s exciting to see such 'cool' technologies getting deployed in India, only time will tell the success of such devices. But I am extremely skeptical about it.
