MUMBAI: The Indian Music Industry (IMI) went through a lot of ups and downs in the last fiscal. It was a colourful year with new business opportunities emerging in the forms of internet and mobile but raking in moolah remained a major concern.

The music industry which was reported to be around Rs 575 crores (legitimate market, excluding piracy) in 2011 has grown to Rs 600 crore, with physical sales attributing between Rs 250-300 crores and digital sales to Rs 350-400 crores. The industry is expected to grow between 7-10 per cent in 2013.

The digital growth story of India has witnessed a 15 per cent rise in its total income and is further expected to rise through digital downloads, internet and mobile consumption and retail marketing.

Even as the total percentage in revenues is expected to further grow at more than 10 percent  through these drivers, the music industry has been able to monetize only 5-10 per cent through the internet, as 90 per cent continues to be a pirate market.

IMI secretary general Savio D’Souza said, “The main growth drivers for the industry will be the mobile and internet platforms. But even as the consumption on these platforms rises, the revenues are not increasing as much as volumes.  This is a challenge. The music industry monetizes only five per cent in internet, so the over all growth will be around 7-10  per cent.”

With a large number of players including Saavn, Gaana, Dhingana and more entering the space, music is now mainly being driven through these aggregators on the internet and in turn helping both the sides to monetize. But with piracy still being a major cause of concern, D’Souza stated that these companies need to have an effective anti-piracy strategy to help them consolidate the space. He mentions that most of the aggregators are not doing anything to help curb piracy and the industry is still incurring a loss of around 1000-1500 crores in revenues due to piracy.

“The IMI  have several initiatives which are successfully working towards curbing piracy and tracking it in an effective manner. But, these companies that drive this music on the net also need to have such strategies. Unfortunately there only a few  companies that  have several anti-piracy initiatives to help their cause,” he added.

While  internet and mobile emerge as the leading growth drivers of the Indian music industry, revenues from other platforms including telcos are under pressure. While earlier, people were largely consuming music through RBT and CRBT, the consumption pattern has witnessed a change as the speed of growth in the sector has not been up to the mark.

Moreover, the total revenue from the FM radio and television space which has also been between 10-15 per cent, not attributing a major portion to the entire growth pie.

D’Souza highlighted, “The number of FM radio stations are limited and even the royalty rate is decided by the government, so there is very little  scope to push it any further by marketing our content.”

Inspite of the drawback in that sector, 2013 is not expected to witness any negative impact due to new business models opening up broader possibilities and opportunities on the music platform.

In terms of music too, movies will continue to dominate a major share of music sales in India with a total of 70 per cent, while the other 30 per cent will belong to other genres like non-film, devotional and more.

“Bollywood is large and people follow it, but apart from that other regional language films in Southern language  and more also have a large audience base now. So movies will continue to dominate the sales and the ratio is not expected to change anytime soon as the follower base of film and non-film music is very different in size,” he concluded.