Airtel launches ‘Wynk Tube’ to bring Digital Entertainment to the next 200 million smartphone users

• ‘Built for India’ by Airtel’s in-house team to serve the growing demand for digital entertainment on smartphones in Tier 2, 3 towns and villages
• Strong focus on a simple and highly intuitive interface made available in multiple Indian regional languages
• Wynk Tube allows users to switch seamlessly between audio and video mode of their favourite songs with a single touch

New Delhi, April 30, 2019: Following the massive success of its OTT music streaming app Wynk Music, Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s leading telecommunications services provider, today announced the launch of its new music streaming app - Wynk Tube. With this Airtel has further expanded its fast growing content portfolio, especially keeping in mind the needs of the next 200 million smartphone users.

The app, which has been built for India by Airtel’s in-house teams, aims to simplify the digital entertainment experience for hundreds of millions of smartphones users, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 towns and villages. Smartphone customers in these markets have a strong affinity for streaming videos of their favourite music tracks and want the convenience of being able to listen and watch their favourite tracks. There is also a need for vernacular interface that makes the user experience much more personalized and lowers the barrier to smartphone usage. Airtel has used a combination of smart, simple and intuitive interface backed by a powerful machine learning algorithm to power recommendations and personalize the app.

Wynk Tube, which is an extension of Wynk Music, allows users to stream audio and video of popular tracks within the same interface. Users can instantly switch between audio and video mode of their favourite tracks with a single touch. The app is currently available for Android smartphones.

Wynk Tube has been built as an extremely light app (only 5MB) that will operate seamlessly on even basic smartphones, including Android Go variants. The app will be available to users in 12 Indian regional languages (including Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Bhojpuri) besides English and Hindi and enables a highly personalized experience. Wynk Tube also features deep voice enabled search to help users discover their favourite music.

Sameer Batra, CEO – Content & Apps, Bharti Airtel said: “Wynk Tube has been built for India 2.0, keeping in mind the digital entertainment needs of hundreds of millions smartphone users in non-metros and small towns. An integrated audio-video music experience delivered in a simple yet intuitive vernacular interface makes Wynk Tube a unique and powerful proposition. Wynk Music gave shape to our journey to the first 100 million users and we believe Wynk Tube will accelerate our journey to the next 100 million users. Regional content and personalization through AI, big data will continue to be a big agenda for us and we hope to build Wynk Tube into one of the most popular music platforms in India with even the possibility of user generated content as a differentiator.”

Wynk Tube is launching with a collection of over 40 lakh songs and related videos.

Some other exciting features of Wynk Tube

• Zero subscription charge for Airtel users with unlimited streaming and downloads.
• Auto pulls all MP3 music files already on the smartphone and uses as part of playlists.
• One touch play --- Welcome playlists for new users , Weekly playlists are refreshed for each user based on his or her listening history

The Wynk Music journey:

• Sept 2014: Launched in India; crosses 1 lakh downloads in 4 days
• Feb 2015: Crosses 5 million app downloads
• June 2015: Launches Data Save Mode
• Nov 2015: Crosses 12 million installs
• Jan 2016: Introduces MP3 Player Function- Plays Local MP3 files
• Mar 2017: Crosses 50 million installs
• Jan 2018: Crosses 75 million installs
• Dec 2018: Voted India’s most entertaining app on Playstore
• Jan 2019: Crosses 100 million installs
• Apr 2019: Launches Wynk Tube