Tech Shout!

iTunes is now looking to produce Indian music content in a big way. The first step has already been made taken as Indian digital media company Hungama.com has joined hands with Apple.

CEO, Hungama, Neeraj Roy says, Hungama.com is the first Indian company to formally enter a deal with iTunes. We should go up in another ten days. Our deal for now is exclusively with T-series and we expect to put close to 30,000 tracks from their catalogue in the next six months.

Though the Hungama-T-series deal might be the biggest with iTunes, it definitely isn’t the pioneering one. Sa Re Ga Ma’s collection has been on the iTunes’ site since September 2004 but Atul Churamani, VP, ANR, doesn’t think it’s time to rejoice as yet. In the last three years, physical sales have dropped down by around 55 percent, while digital music sales are just around five percent at present. However, Churamani and the rest of the music industry believe that with iTunes having an 85 percent share in the digital market, being on the site is very encouraging.

The first series of albums that will go onto the iTunes site include chartbusters like ‘Main Hoon Na’ and ‘Chalte Chalte’ along with more recent releases like ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne’.