🎵 Saregama India Ltd – 150,000 Songs, 9,293 Crores Market Cap, and Still Selling Radios in 2025?
1. At a Glance
Once the proud Gramophone Company of India spinning discs in 1902, Saregama is now remixing its way into FY25 with YouTube Shorts, AI music apps, and—wait for it—Carvaan, the modern radio that our uncles bought in bulk during weddings. The company controls ~50% of India’s recorded music, which basically means it can charge rent on your nostalgia. With Rs 9,293 Cr market cap and Rs 200 Cr annual PAT, it’s the original content landlord of Bollywood.
2. Introduction
Saregama’s story is like that friend from college who still shows up at reunions but suddenly became cool again after joining Instagram. Founded as the Gramophone Company of India, it spent decades living off Lata, Kishore, and Rafi, before Carvaan brought it back to the drawing room.
Fast forward to 2025: licensing songs to reels, selling digital rights to OTTs, producing Yoodlee indie films, and acquiring Pocket Aces (yes, the “FilterCopy” folks you binge on YouTube). Think of it as a company that monetizes everything from your dadi’s favorite bhajans to your Gen Z sibling’s lo-fi study playlist.
The pitch is simple:
Music IP is gold.
OTT needs content.
Ads need background scores.
Instagram needs reels.
And Saregama owns the vault. But the bigger question: can they turn all this IP into scalable profits without being reduced to a one-hit wonder?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Saregama has three verticals:
Music Licensing & Artist Management (77% of revenue)
1,50,000+ songs, 23+ languages.
Tie-ups with 65+ licensing platforms, 30+ streaming apps, 20+ broadcasters, 8+ social platforms.
Doubled content spend, with 52% of licensing revenue now from “new music” (post-2000).
Artist management arm has 150+ influencers/artists with a combined 100 Mn followers. Basically, they rent out talent the way Zoomcar rents hatchbacks.
Retail (Carvaan)
Retro-styled Bluetooth speaker with 5,000 pre-loaded tracks.
FY24 sales: 6.9 lakh units (up from 4 lakh in FY22). Q1 FY25: 1.42 lakh units.
Now shifting to e-commerce to save margins because offline sales = higher costs + uncle-aunty bargaining.
Video Content (Films, Series, TV)
Yoodlee Films: 30 releases in 5 years.
TV production: 6,000+ hours for Sun TV (South = loyal serial addicts).
Digital web series, shorts, and Dice Media collabs.
Events
0.5% of revenue, but flashy. 80,000 people at live concerts FY24. Basically PR disguised as P&L.
Question for you: would you rather buy a Carvaan or pay for Saregama’s YouTube Premium subscription?
