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Apple teams up with India’s Bharti Airtel to offer its Apple TV+ and Apple Music services for free to Airtel’s premium customers, expanding its reach in the competitive Indian market.
Key Points
- Apple partners with Bharti Airtel to offer free Apple TV+ and Apple Music to Airtel’s premium customers.
- The deal gives Apple access to thousands of consumers in India, the world’s most populous nation.
- Apple TV+ will be bundled with Airtel’s premium WiFi and postpaid plans.
- Airtel’s Wynk music app will be shut down, with Apple Music taking its place for premium users.
- The move is part of Apple’s strategy to expand its digital services in India’s competitive media market.
In a strategic move to expand its footprint in India, Apple has partnered with Bharti Airtel, one of the country’s largest telecom operators, to offer its Apple TV+ and Apple Music services for free to Airtel’s premium customers. This collaboration will allow Apple to tap into a vast consumer base in the world’s most populous nation, where it faces stiff competition from established streaming giants.
Airtel announced on Tuesday that Apple TV+ will now be bundled with its premium WiFi and postpaid plans, giving subscribers access to Apple’s video streaming service at no extra cost. The deal, whose financial details remain undisclosed, also includes Apple Music, which will replace Airtel’s Wynk music app for its premium users. The Wynk app will be shut down, with its employees being absorbed into the company.
For Apple, this partnership represents a significant opportunity to expand its reach in India’s $28 billion media and entertainment market. Apple TV+, known for its mostly English-language content, has been a relatively small player in the region, where it competes with the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, and JioCinema.
The Indian streaming market is becoming increasingly competitive, especially as an $8.5 billion merger between Reliance Industries and Walt Disney’s Indian media assets faces scrutiny from antitrust regulators. This partnership with Airtel could give Apple an edge, leveraging Airtel’s position as India’s second-largest telecom operator with 281 million subscribers.
By bundling its streaming services with Airtel’s premium offerings, Apple is aiming to reach a much larger audience in a country where digital consumption is on the rise. As the streaming wars heat up, this collaboration could be a key step in Apple’s broader strategy to secure a stronger foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.
