MUMBAI: It’s 2019 but Indian music industry continues to live in the shadow of Bollywood. If you don’t believe in these words, let’s have a look at a few facts. The recent Ernst & Young report released by FICCI highlights that 80 per cent of the market revenue is garnered because of film music.

With a glorious history of over 100 years, Hindi film music has been the leader of market share followed by devotional, regional and classical music. No other format of music has ever over-taken the overwhelming presence of Bollywood chartbusters. In 2018 too, Bollywood music claimed 80 per cent of the music market share. This staggering share is present notwithstanding the burgeoning independent music space.  The rapidly growing independent music space is well supported by music streaming apps like Hungama, Saavn with their original initiatives like Artist Aloud and Artist Original respectively. Despite space and support, it is yet to claim the biggest revenue factor of the industry.

The most shocking revelation in the FICCI report is the current condition of physical format music. The contribution of the Indian music industry globally fell to 50 per cent in 2018 and is currently valued at meager 8 per cent only.

Shridhar Subramaniam, head of one of the biggest music labels Sony Music India, had shared in 2017 that India was never a CD Market and experienced a brief cassette era too; however, the biggest revenue garnered was through download of ringtones till now.

Smartphones too have a major role to play in the Bollywood music market as 96 per cent of consumers consume music through the usage of smartphones. It is a well-known fact that by 2020, India will have 450 million Smartphone users, possibly the largest population in the world.