Date:26/03/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/03/26/stories/2004032602051700.htm

Back Tagore songs, Ray movies boost MusicWorld sales

Our Bureau

Kolkata , March 25

TWO of the world's best known Bengalis - Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray - have not only proved to be among the State's best ambassadors but they are also helping the RPG group to make money through higher sales at their music retail chain, MusicWorld (MW).

Located in Park Street, this store is set to gross sales of Rs 10 crore this fiscal (against Rs 8.48 crore last year) accounting for one-sixth of the total sales being estimated by MusicWorld in 2003-04 . It has 200 outlets in 31 cities and nearly 5.5 million music lovers visit these stores every year.

While the Park Street store has been MW's largest-selling store for two years now, the turnover it expects to generate this year is the highest ever. Mr S.K. Chowhdury, Vice-President of MW, who was here in connection with the store's fourth anniversary celebrations, said that the achievement by MusicWorld in general and Park Street in particular, is all the more remarkable as it came in a year of falling unit prices.

Altogether 8.5 lakh titles were sold from the Park Street store, which was 21 per cent higher than the seven lakhs sold in 2003-04. Of every 100 titles, 48 were Hindi, 33 Bengali and 19 international.

There has been a slight increase in sales of Hindi albums this year at the cost of the other two segments. Overall people bought five lakh music cassettes and 2.4 lakh CDs this year. Tagore songs were the highest selling music albums during the year while Ray VCDs sold almost four times with 11,500 such VCDs being sold in 2003-04.

An internal study done by MW showed that Bengali music lovers were showing a distinct preference for CDs. As against a national average of one CD being sold for every 10 cassettes, the MW patron picked up one CD for every two cassettes.