New Delhi: In surprise news, Bharti Airtel a leading Indian telecom player announced the axing of its music streaming product, Wynk Music, and said all employees will be absorbed within the core team. This decision thus marks a big change in Airtel’s digital strategy, which now includes a broad bouquet of digital services to supplement its telecom services. This could have more far-reaching consequences on the metamorphosis in how telecom companies are trying to integrate digital content with their core telecom services.
Wynk Music, launched in 2014, started off with a blistering beginning amongst Indian users to stream music, considering its vast library of over 6 million songs across different languages and genres. It was one of the pioneering services in India that offered seamless online and offline music streaming, catering to the diversified tastes of Indian consumers. It marked Wynk Music as an important part of Airtel’s digital services ecosystem and a contributor to its strategy of bundling value-added services with its data plans.
Over the last couple of years, though, Wynk Music started feeling the heat from many globals such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music besides regional players such as JioSaavn and Gaana. After the initial success of Wynk, the brand couldn’t keep its competitive sheen in an increasingly crowded marketplace, where user tastes were fast evolving, and the cost of customer acquisition and retention was rising exponentially.
Therefore, the move to shut down Wynk Music would seem part of a broader realignment of the strategic priorities of Airtel. By shuttering the app, Airtel cleans up its focus on enhancing core telecommunications services, probably reassigning resources to areas that the company views as more prospective for growth. One major influence that could contribute to this decision would be the price at which it licenses content and its rights; both are shrinking margins for most streaming services around the world.
More importantly, the deal brings all employees of Wynk Music into the core team at Airtel. The deal showcases Airtel’s intent toward retaining talent and tapping its competencies across its wide digital strategy. Sources close to the development said employees at Wynk Music would be inducted into various verticals including technology, product development, marketing, and customer experience. This will likely bring new ideas and fresh thinking into the departments, improving Airtel’s digital capabilities.
On this development, Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO of Bharti Airtel said, “While the call of shutting down Wynk Music was not easy, it was a hard call that was necessary to ensure that we remain focused on our core strengths and priorities. We welcome the talented team into the larger Airtel family with lots of confidence in them bringing great value to our future initiatives.”
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While Airtel’s move at least means that there is recognition of the challenges in being able to remain a standalone service, the company remains committed through various telecom pan-product offerings along with other associated digital offerings. They can look at providing integrations with such streaming titans in the future so that the company continues offering these services to the users without the hassle of running a standalone music service.
The other way to say it: Airtel has decided to shut down Wynk Music and absorb the workforce-a new start of change down the road of digital transformation. As great as that may sound, such a move underlines a realistic trajectory toward streamlining resources for core competency building in an ever-aggressive marketplace. The reason is, that as Airtel struggles to keep pace with an ever-changing ecosystem, such strategic decisions are going to be closely watched not just by industry players but also by consumers.
