Airtel creates magical record, crosses 75 million mobile music and song downloads

Company Release

New Delhi, May 22

Airtel announced that it has crossed the landmark of 75 million music downloads. This include all forms of music downloads - Hello Tunes (Ring back tone) as well as ring tones of all forms including MP3, truetones, polytones and mono tones.

To commemorate this landmark achievement, Airtel offered to its customers Full Music and Full Music Video downloads. This landmark follows a series of firsts by Airtel in the area of mobile music. The music journey of Airtel started with the Airtel signature tune by A.R.Rehman, which has become India’s most popular mobile music with over 4 million downloads. Airtel’s other firsts include Hello Tunes on mobile as well as landlines;Airtel Live!, the first entertainment zone on the mobile and Easy Music -world’s largest mobile music initiative.

The music industry was present in full force to support Airtel’s initiatives to popularize mobile music. This included senior dignitaries from industry bodies - Indian Music Industry (IMI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL). Also present at the announcement were some of the best known labels in music - HMV Saregama, SonyBMG, Universal and Tips.

Mr. Hemant Sachdev, Director, Marketing & Communication, Bharti Airtel Limited said, “Music in the mobile industry today is synonymous with Airtel. The 75 million downloads are testimony to that. We introduced Hello Tunes,brought over 18,000 songs in 20 different languages to our prized customers.We recently launched Easy Music and now in the same mobile device, we will give our customers the option of listening to full songs of their choice along with the music video of the song. With a shared vision from the leaders of the music industry, Airtel will bring delight to the life of every segment of the market with unique music offerings.”

Airtel Full Music & Music Video downloads are a boon for music lovers as it provides them with an opportunity to download digital music content at the press of a button. The service offers the most convenient way to download digital MP3 music content on mobile phones without visiting any web portal. Airtel customers simply have to choose the music track by logging on to Airtel Live! WAP portal and then download and save the file on their phone. The Full Music & Music Video download service is available in over 27 mobile phone models.

Soundbuzz, Asia Pacific’s leading digital music company, has partnered with Airtel to bring this service to over 20million Airtel customers.

Mr. Sudhanshu Sarronwala - CEO Soundbuzz, said, “The launch of Airtel’s Full Music & Music Video downloads represents a critical step in the evolution of the digital music industry in India. It is appropriate that such an important milestone be achieved by India’s largest telecommunications

company, Airtel, in partnership with Asia’s largest digital music distributor and all of the country’s biggest music labels under the banner of the IMI (Indian Music Industry)”.

Airtel offers Full Music and Video downloads at an affordable price of Rs.20 for a full music download and Rs.30 for a music video download. With this, Airtel reiterates its promise to make music more accessible to its customers. Airtel recently launched Easy Music, a pioneering service where Airtel mobile users across the country will have easy access to the wide repertoire of 18,000 songs in 20 languages via 100,000 Airtel music outlets. With this service, all the customer needs to do is to walk into any Airtel Easy Music outlet, choose their favorite song and the retailer will download it on to the customers phone in a mere 60seconds

For further information, please contact:

Deeba Ali / Prem Subedi / Nidhi Mehra

Rediffusion | DYR - Public Relations

Phone: 011- 4166349 / 26512658 / 59 / 97