T-Series, the largest record company in India, has grown into an absolute juggernaut in the internet music industry over the past few years.
With over 60 billion views, the Mumbai-based corporation has surpassed all other YouTube channels to become the most popular one. It also just replaced Swedish vlogger Felix Kjellberg, commonly known as Pewdiepie, as having the most subscribers on YouTube, and it is just a few subscribers away from becoming the first to exceed the 100 million mark.
Bhushan Kumar continued where his late father, Shri Gulshan Kumar, left off by taking the helm of T-Series, a well-established business, and rising to the position of chairman and managing director. T-Series is the top music label in India.
With a market share of more than 70%, T-Series is the largest music record label in India. Additionally, it is the most watched and subscribed-to YouTube channel on the planet.
A pioneer in the entertainment sector, T-Series creates both music and movies. With exports to 24 nations and a net worth of over 2400 crores of Indian rupees, T-Series is an extremely profitable business.
Humble beginnings
Most Indians are familiar with the rise of T-Series. Gulshan Kumar, Bhushan’s father, came from modest roots and started Super Cassettes Industries from scratch in the early 1980s. The record company first gained notoriety by peddling piracy-related music from movies and devotional materials like hymns and prayers. As the business expanded, it started creating the score for popular Bollywood movies. Bhushan assumed control at the age of 19 after the Mumbai underworld murdered his father in 1997.
Any business that achieves optimal profits or profits while taking the fewest risks is guaranteed to succeed.
Because the songs on the T-Series cassettes were already quite well-known and the new singers only added a fresh beat to them, they became an instant hit. This practice allowed T-Series to start off by making large money with little work by merely making covers of already-popular songs rather than creating original music or songs.
With the release of the film Aashiqui in 1990, Gulshan Kumar experienced his first significant success as a film producer.
Aashiqui quickly gained popularity and its soundtrack album rose to the top of all Bollywood albums in sales. When more than 20 million copies of the Aashiqui soundtrack album were sold in India, a new record was set.
The enormous success of this movie helped the business become extremely well-known, and T-Series went on to become India’s top music label company without ever looking back.
A tale of triumph
Industry estimates place T-Series’ yearly revenue at $100 million and its market share between 70 and 80 percent. The most attention has been drawn outside of India by T-Series’ abrupt and quick ascent on YouTube. Over the course of the last two years, it has pushed the number of YouTube subscribers from 18 million in 2017 to nearly 100 million.
According to Kumar, moving up the YouTube ranks wasn’t always an intentional strategy. They didn’t really make a concerted effort to top the charts. He only realized the significance of the growth until his team and YouTube itself consistently covered it in the international media.
The fact that Gulshan Kumar has a propensity of maintaining excellent relationships with retailers may also be a contributing factor to T-Series’ enormous success.
Understanding India’s tremendous shift in internet availability over the past two years is essential to understanding T-Series’ success. Beginning in 2010, T-Series began publishing trailers and music videos on YouTube, with varying degrees of popularity. When Reliance Jio’s mobile services surfaced in late 2016, India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, who founded the company, shook the telecom industry. This made internet access affordable for everyone. It compelled industry giants like Vodafone and Bharti Airtel to significantly lower the cost of their data plans.
The majority of T-Series’ income comes from the release of music, but it also makes money from the live performances of its artists. Other revenue sources for the company include YouTube channels, content agreements with online music streaming services, royalties from radio and television channels, and content deals with these outlets.
In addition to realizing his father’s ambitions, Bhushan Kumar has achieved great success in business and has contributed significantly to the internationalization of Indian music.
After realizing its goal of becoming India’s biggest music record label, T-Series is now focused on becoming the nation’s biggest film production company. Bhushan Kumar, who inherited from his father the same foresight and aptitude for seizing tiny opportunities, stays up with the most recent developments and technology improvements in the business, allowing him to take the business to the next level.
