Tech Shout!

India finds a place for itself at the world music expo MIDEM, in Cannes. 14 Indian companies are participating at the expo. There are 17 companies from Singapore, 12 from China and two each from Malaysia and the Philippines. In a crowded MIDEM conference in Cannes, publisher of the UK-based Music Week magazine, Ajax Scott said that, China and India were two of the world’s top markets in terms of mobile handset growth, with one billion cellphones apiece already, and digital penetration is “going through the roof” in both markets.

Though 3G phones still await launch in India, with 78 million mobile phone subscribers, the potential for generating digital music, video and cellphone revenues is huge, Neeraj Roy of India’s Hungama Mobile told MidemNet participants. With its enormous Bollywood film business, music on mobile phones will be dominated by songs made for movies, Roy noted. But Indian music looks to be on its way Westwards as Apple’s iTunes, MSM Music and Napster have just snapped up a lot of this local music content to take it global. With 112 companies represented at this year’s MIDEM, Japan, is one of the top ten countries exhibiting at the fair.