"India is a primary market for us and we have aggressive plans for the country. In fact, of the $11.6 million (nearly Rs 50 crore) revenue we had globally in 2005, as much as $3.4 million was from India," Arti Mehta, chief marketing officer, Worldspace India, said at the launch Worldspace's signature tune composed by music director A R Rahman.
The company said it would conduct extensive market research and offer products on demand. "Even though our present portfolio includes a host of genres, we would still offer whatever the consumers demand," Mehta said.
Worldspace, which has made an investment of $300 million for its India related operations currently has 110,000 subscribers in the country, which is a significant jump from 21,000 subscribers in 2005.
With 40 radio channels across a wide genre ranging from music, news, spiritual, wellness and sports, Worldspace - which is a paid service - says it does not see competition from the mushrooming FM and radio channels.
"Worldspace is an altogether different medium from FM and is rather complimentary to FM channels. Apart from a digital quality sound beam, our subscribers have access to the content 24 hours a day without being interrupted by advertisements," Tedros Lemma, corporate vice president, Worldspace Inc said.
The monthly subscription rate for Worldspace in India is Rs 150 a month, Mehta said.