Tips Music is a catalogue business, not a hit factory - it owns over 34,000 songs and earns a licence fee every time one is streamed, watched, or placed in a film or advertisement. The company began in 1988 as a cassette label, became India’s largest music-rights acquirer by the late 1990s, and then made an early bet on digital that transformed it into a debt-free, pure-play licensing engine. Everything it does flows from a single, recurring discipline: spend on content only from internal cash, expense every rupee of that cost on day one, and then collect royalties for up to 60 years with no further carrying cost. # Business segments Two engines that are really one - a catalogue that is both the product and the factory, and a distribution layer that turns every play into a payment - built on a library whose value grows the longer it sits on the shelf. ## 1. The owned catalogue: a 60-year royalty stream paid for on day one **The company’s entire business rests on a library of over 34,000 songs that it owns outright, with every rupee of content cost expensed in the quarter of release so that all future income falls straight to the bottom line.** - **The 1990s are the moat** - roughly 800 songs from that decade, including 600-700 “A grade” tracks, still generate significant monthly volume decades after release, because listeners replay favourite songs thousands of times over a lifetime. - **Built, bought, and co-produced** - about 25% of new content is created in-house under the Tips Originals brand, 35% is acquired from the sister company Tips Films, and 30-35% is purchased from outside producers, with rights typically locked in 8 to 11 months before a film’s release. - **Quality over quantity, by design** - the company deliberately reduced new releases from 896 songs in FY23 to 399 in FY26, targeting a 50% success ratio so that every addition earns its place in the permanent library. - **Copyright law is the silent partner** - music copyrights in India are protected for 60 years, the longest IP protection available, which lets the company benefit from inflation, new platforms, and market penetration without doing anything new. - **Acquisitions fill the gaps** - in August 2025 the company bought Studio Radha’s complete catalogue, adding over 4,000 traditional devotional and folk songs in Gujarati and Kutchi, expanding its language footprint beyond the 25 languages it already covers. ## 2. Digital licensing: paid every time someone presses play **The company operates a pure business-to-business licensing model - it hands its catalogue to platforms, and they pay a fee every time a user streams, watches, or scrolls past a song.** - **YouTube is the biggest shop window** - with 153.1 million subscribers and 210.4 billion annual views in FY26, Tips Official ranks among the top five music companies on the platform globally, and the company earns a revenue share negotiated after a five-year dispute concluded around 2020. - **Shorts pay a lump sum, not per view** - the company receives a fixed payment from YouTube Shorts rather than a profit share, so a viral Short can multiply views without a direct revenue spike, though the underlying run rate remains healthy. - **Global reach through partners, not offices** - Warner Music Group handles international distribution on Apple Music and Spotify, Sony Music Publishing administers and promotes the catalogue worldwide under a multi-year deal that now includes YouTube outside India, and TikTok hosts the full catalogue globally (excluding China and India) under a direct deal signed in November 2024. - **Three cheques from every platform** - the company collects two revenue shares per song (one for the sound recording, one for the publishing) and expects a third stream from OTT players as subscription revenue grows, with paid subscriptions in India projected to nearly double from 14.4 million to roughly 28-30 million. - **Sync deals turn songs into ad campaigns** - the company licenses its catalogue to Netflix, Hyundai, Tinder, and television channels like Star and Sony, while its dedicated Brand & Partnerships division creates bespoke integrations such as the “Tips Take 2” revival project that reimagines 1990s hits for brands. # Group structure and partners **Tips Music is a standalone, debt-free company with no subsidiaries - it relies on a handful of global distribution and publishing partners to place its catalogue on every major platform worldwide.** - The company has no subsidiaries, associates, or joint ventures; it was demerged from its former film-production division in FY22, and the resulting entity, Tips Films Limited, is now a separately listed related party from which Tips Music acquires audio-visual rights. - Warner Music Group distributes the catalogue internationally on subscription platforms; Sony Music Publishing administers and promotes the songs globally under an expanded multi-year deal; TikTok hosts the full catalogue under a direct strategic partnership signed in 2024. - The company has 25-plus media partners in total and holds a small unquoted investment of 5,000 equity shares in Label Mobile Media Private Limited.