The slowdown in India’s music market has slowed revenue growth at Mumbai-headquartered Tips Music, but the prominent label predicts strong momentum ahead as it expects live music and paid streaming continue to expand in the South Asian market.
Tips reported 11% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 of its fiscal 2026 (calendar Q3 2025), which ended on September 30, reaching INR ₹892 million, or USD $10.2 million at the average exchange rate for the quarter.
That represents a slowdown for Tips, which recorded 19.1% YoY revenue growth in Q1 of fiscal 2026, and in the same quarter a year earlier, the company reported 32% YoY revenue growth.
Tips Chairman and Managing Director Kumar Taurani noted that despite a “challenging industry environment,” the company’s revenue still grew around 15% YoY in the first half.
“Over the longer term, we expect strong business momentum, supported by sustained paid subscriber growth, beginning of ad revenue sharing from short-form content platforms, and robust expansion in the public performance segment,” Taurani said in a statement.
India has seen a slowdown in the growth of its music market that is surprisingly steep for a country known to have been among the fastest-growing music markets in recent years.
According to IFPI data, recorded music revenues in the country grew at an anemic 3% YoY pace in 2024. The country remains well behind many other markets in paid subscription adoption, with just 20 million of India’s 192 million music streaming subscribers paying for an account, or slightly above 10%.
Tips’ Operating EBITDA for the quarter came in at INR ₹678 million ($7.8 million), up 14% YoY. Operating EBITDA margin expanded to 67.8%, from 59.5% a year earlier.
After-tax profit came in at INR ₹532 million ($6.1 million), up 10% YoY, while the after-tax profit margin stayed steady at 59.6%.
“Over the longer term, we expect strong business momentum, supported by sustained paid subscriber growth, beginning of ad revenue sharing from short-form content platforms, and robust expansion in the public performance segment.”
Kumar Taurani, Tips Music
The company, which boasts a catalog of 34,000 “must-have hits,” including some going back to its early days as a prominent label for Bollywood movie music, said it released 133 songs during the quarter, of which 76 were film tracks and 57 were non-film tracks. Tips highlighted Telugu’s Vibe Undi as one of its biggest hits of the quarter.
Tips said its YouTube channels’ subscriber base grew to 134 million, up from 108 million in the same quarter a year earlier.
The company announced a second dividend of INR ₹4 ($0.045) per share this fiscal year, bringing the total divided payout to INR ₹1.023 billion ($11.7 million).
The company’s earnings numbers reflect a growing consumer appetite for music in India – but slowing revenue growth.
At the All About Music conference in Mumbai this past summer, IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley urged India’s music industry to tackle the challenges that face it despite its “extraordinary potential” to drive the next wave of global music growth.
Oakley pointed to several risks threatening sustainable growth, including the misuse of generative AI, streaming fraud, and the overwhelming dominance of free, ad-supported streaming over paid subscriptions.
“These risks are real,” Oakley said. “Music has worth, and paying for it sustains the artists and cultures we love. The decisions we make now will shape the next decade of music.”
For its part, Tips Music has been extending and expanding its partnerships with music majors internationally, including a recent expansion of its publishing partnership with Sony Music Publishing. The deal entails administration, synchronization, and expanded promotion of Tips Music’s repertoire across global digital platforms.
Tips also last year extended its distribution deal with Warner Music India and ADA.
The company has also been expanding its business through acquisitions, most recently buying the complete music catalog of Studio Radha, which added more than 4,000 Gujarati and Kutchi tracks to Tips’ portfolio.
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