Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of Wynk Music — a carrier agnostic mobile application with over 1.7 million songs including Hindi, regional and international hits.

With this launch, Airtel has now become the first operator to introduce an OTT (Over-the-Top) mobile application in the Indian market, which will work across mobile operators, enabling customers to stream, download in an ad-free interface.

The move comes even as telecom companies are losing out to players such as Facebook and Google when it comes to earning money from mobile services. Airtel’s launch is being seen as an attempt to eat into the revenue share of the application service providers. Until now, Indian telecom players were happy milking the low-hanging fruit of voice telephony. But with data being the new growth area it’s important for operators to move beyond providing just telecom pipes to offering applications.

Wynk is a free-to-download application available on the Android and iOS platforms starting today. With the free version of the app, users can stream songs of their choice online and tune into Internet radio. With Wynk Plus, users can enjoy unlimited in-app song downloads and play music offline at Rs 99 on Android and Rs 60 on iOS. Airtel customers using Android phones can enjoy a special introductory price of just Rs 29 on this. Wynk Freedom subscription at Rs 129 is available exclusively to Airtel customers in 3G circles using Android phones which allow them to get all-inclusive unlimited streaming and download of music without incurring additional data charges.

Airtel customers can pay for all purchases on the app using their Airtel balance or bill. Other customers have the option to pay using online banking.

Srinivasan Gopalan, Director – Consumer Business, Bharti Airtel said, “With the proliferation of smartphones in the country, mobile phones have emerged as the most preferred platform when it comes to experiencing music on the go and accounts for almost 85-90 per cent of total digital consumption."

Indian language songs on the app include — Hindi, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali. While smartphone users on Android and iOS can download the app from the Play Store and iOS app store respectively, users of other mobile devices can go to the Wynk mobile website >www.wynk.in .

Browsing on the app and mobile website is free and no data charges will apply. As an introductory offer, customers get to experience the Wynk Plus and Wynk Freedom services absolutely free for the first month of their subscription. Wynk is easily accessible on any mobile Internet connection, be it 2G, 3G or 4G and Wi-Fi.

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