Apple goes after Spotify and Disney via a landmark partnership

Apple is preparing the stage for a landmark partnership with India's second-largest telecom company, Bharti Airtel. Apple has got some catching up to do with competitors like Spotify and Walt Disney.

The Cupertino giant aims to increase its global revenue from services such as apps, payments, and media: the plan is to offer free music and video streaming to many of Bharti Airtel's 281 million customers.

This deal is expected to significantly expand the user base for Apple TV+ and Apple Music in India, a country where Apple has historically focused on manufacturing to diversify its supply chain beyond China, Reuters reports. While many iPhones are manufactured in India, Apple devices only account for 6% of the country's 690 million smartphones, an increase from about 2% in 2019, according to data from Counterpoint Research.



In the United States, Apple has been offering Apple Music for free through some Verizon mobile data plans since 2019, and its Apple TV+ will be included in a Comcast streaming bundle starting in May.

In India, Apple Music will be made available to premium users of Airtel's Wynk music app, which is set to eventually close. Currently, Airtel's postpaid contracts provide around 7 million subscribers access to the ad-free version of Wynk, but only a small fraction of these users actually use it, according to a telecom industry source who requested anonymity due to the confidentiality of the figures. Neither Apple nor Airtel provided comments outside of regular business hours.

Apple Music, with its content including Bollywood and regional-language songs, is more tailored to the Indian market compared to the predominantly English Apple TV+, although its library is smaller than Spotify's, said Neil Shah, co-founder of Counterpoint.

In India, Spotify has approximately 3 million paid users, Gaana has 1.4 million, Wynk has 500,000, and Apple Music has 200,000, according to an Indian music industry source who wished to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to share these estimates publicly.

In total, only about 7.5 million people paid for audio streaming services in India last year, out of roughly 185 million users of both ad-supported and ad-free apps, according to data from industry group FICCI and consultants EY.

Airtel will pay Apple a per-user fee that is "significantly" lower than the monthly $1.20 charged for Apple TV+ and Apple Music in India, said a telecom industry source. In exchange, Airtel will save millions of rupees in licensing costs as it plans to shut down Wynk and use Apple Music to boost revenue and enhance customer loyalty, according to a second telecom source.

Apple is a minor player in the Indian video streaming market, with fewer than 1 million users, according to Counterpoint estimates. Disney+ Hotstar leads the market with 38 million users, while Netflix has around 10 million, according to estimates. Indicating the market's potential, Netflix has stated it aims for 100 million users in India, though it has not specified a time frame.

Apple TV+ is known for its original series like "The Morning Show" and "Slow Horses," but competitors such as Netflix and Disney offer more Hindi content, including Bollywood productions and regional-language films.

Disney and Reliance Industries' JioCinema also broadcast cricket, India's most popular sport, and the two companies are merging their Indian media assets to form the country's largest entertainment company. Airtel, which is the second-largest telecom provider in terms of subscribers after Reliance Jio, plans to offer packages that include several months of free access to Apple TV+, according to the second telecom source.