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Apple Eyes Bigger Slice of India's Streaming, Music Market with Airtel Deal

FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
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Apple Eyes Bigger Slice of India's Streaming, Music Market with Airtel Deal

FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Apple is tying up with India's Bharti Airtel to offer the telecom firm's premium customers its music and video streaming services for free, giving the US giant access to thousands of consumers in the world's most populous nation.
With mostly English-language content, Apple TV+ is a small player in India's $28 billion media and entertainment market, where its rivals include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video , Disney+ Hotstar and billionaire Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema.
The move comes as competition tightens in India and an $8.5-billion merger of the Indian media assets of Reliance and Walt Disney - which have a streaming service each - faces close scrutiny from antitrust regulators.
"Apple TV+ will come bundled with premium Airtel WiFi and Postpaid plans," Airtel said in a statement on Tuesday, though the companies did not disclose a deal value for the partnership or information on costs.
Apple Music will also be available for current premium users of Airtel's Wynk music app, which will be shut down. Its employees are being subsumed by the company, Reuters quoted Airtel as saying.
Two sources familiar with the strategy said that for Apple, the deal is aimed at reaching out to a much bigger pool of consumers with its digital services given Airtel is the country's second biggest telecom operator with 281 million subscribers.
Ambani's Reliance Jio telecom service has 489 million users.
The Apple TV+ streaming service, known for its original series like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show and Slow Horses, has so far differentiated itself in the streaming landscape with a focus on in-house content.
Most rival platforms in India and overseas offer users older movies and TV shows from other studios, as well as their own originals.
Airtel will within days announce new tariff plans that will include free Apple TV+ offerings, said two other sources with direct knowledge of its plans.
Currently, the Apple TV+ service retails at $9.99 per month in the US and 99 Indian rupees ($1.18) per month in India, compared to Ambani's JioCinema which offers cricket content for free and has plans as cheap as 29 rupees a month. Netflix starts with monthly tariff of 149 rupees.
Cricket is seen as a way to attract more customers to streaming platforms in India, and Disney lost millions of Indian users last year when it lost streaming rights to Ambani's Reliance for streaming the world's richest cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League.
Apple has 6% of India's 690 million smartphone users, according to data from research firm Counterpoint. The remaining market is dominated by phones from Samsung and Xiaomi, and are powered by Google's Android operating system.
Apple Music is currently priced at 99 Indian rupees per month and has a library of 100 million songs.

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Entertainment

Major Sponsors Drop Kanye West London Gigs as PM Voices Concern

Kanye West is due to play three nights at the Wireless festival in London. JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX / AFP/File
Kanye West is due to play three nights at the Wireless festival in London. JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX / AFP/File
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Major Sponsors Drop Kanye West London Gigs as PM Voices Concern

Kanye West is due to play three nights at the Wireless festival in London. JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX / AFP/File
Kanye West is due to play three nights at the Wireless festival in London. JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX / AFP/File

Drinks giants Pepsi and Diageo on Sunday pulled out of sponsoring a music festival in London headlined by US rapper Kanye West, who has a history of “antisemitic” outbursts.

The disgraced 48-year-old hip-hop star -- now known as Ye -- is due to play three nights at the Wireless Festival in London in July as part of a European comeback tour.

A spokesperson for Pepsi, the festival's top sponsor, told AFP on Sunday that the brand "has decided to withdraw its sponsorship of Wireless Festival", without giving a reason.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed concern about West's appearances, while campaigners against “antisemitism” urged the government to stop the rapper entering the UK.

Starmer told The Sun newspaper it was "deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism".

He added that "antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly".

Diageo, whose labels Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan were slated to be partner brands, also dropped out.

"We have informed the organizers of our concerns and as it stands, Diageo will not sponsor the 2026 Wireless Festival," a spokesman told AFP.

The festival's operating company, Live Nation, has not so far responded to a request for comment from AFP.

Festival organizers announced West's appearance on social media last month, prompting criticism from Jewish organizations and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British charity, on Sunday urged Starmer not to be a "bystander" and to ban West from entering the country.

"Surely this is a clear case," the charity said on X, suggesting West could be banned as a non-citizen whose presence is not "conducive to the public good".

West's European tour has already provoked controversy. In France, the mayor of Marseille said the rapper was "not welcome" for a concert there in June.

West has expressed regret over his “antisemitic” rants, which he blamed on his bipolar disorder.

In May 2025, he released a song called "Heil Hitler" to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

The song was banned by major streaming platforms.

Entertainment

It’s-a-Hit: ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Box Office Blasts off with $372.5 Million Globally

This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Luigi, voiced by Charlie Day, Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, Yoshi, voiced by Donald Glover, and Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, in a scene from "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie." (Nintendo and Illumination/Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Luigi, voiced by Charlie Day, Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, Yoshi, voiced by Donald Glover, and Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, in a scene from "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie." (Nintendo and Illumination/Universal Pictures via AP)
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It’s-a-Hit: ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Box Office Blasts off with $372.5 Million Globally

This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Luigi, voiced by Charlie Day, Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, Yoshi, voiced by Donald Glover, and Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, in a scene from "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie." (Nintendo and Illumination/Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Luigi, voiced by Charlie Day, Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, Yoshi, voiced by Donald Glover, and Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, in a scene from "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie." (Nintendo and Illumination/Universal Pictures via AP)

Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the UK and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the US and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reign of the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $29.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $216.3 million.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about an engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five.

Entertainment

Surprise! Zendaya Wears Something Blue, After the Old, New and Borrowed

Zendaya attends a special screening of "The Drama" at Regal Union Square on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in New York. (AP)
Zendaya attends a special screening of "The Drama" at Regal Union Square on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in New York. (AP)
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Surprise! Zendaya Wears Something Blue, After the Old, New and Borrowed

Zendaya attends a special screening of "The Drama" at Regal Union Square on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in New York. (AP)
Zendaya attends a special screening of "The Drama" at Regal Union Square on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in New York. (AP)

Yup, she wore something blue.

Zendaya, surprising precisely nobody on the planet, showed up in dazzling blue at Thursday’s New York premiere of “The Drama,” after teasing the bridal theme for weeks by wearing something old, then something new, then something borrowed.

Her strapless Schiaparelli Haute Couture ball gown, accompanied by sapphire earrings, completed the sartorial series just in time for the opening of her movie — a film that has attracted considerable controversy and mixed reviews. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play a couple whose wedding plans go seriously awry following a dark revelation.

The high-fashion appearances have also echoed the bridal theme of Zendaya’s own life, with unconfirmed speculation flying — fed in part by rings she’s been wearing — that she’s already married to partner Tom Holland.

The actor and her stylist, Law Roach, saved the most spectacular outfit for last. Schiaparelli posted on its own Instagram that the gown, which took some 8,000 hours of work, was made of blue and black raw silk “feathers” in satin stitch embroidery, and contained 27 shades of blue.

“Something old” came in Los Angeles on March 17, where Zendaya wore the same white, off-the-shoulder Vivienne Westwood Bridal gown that she’d worn to the 2015 Oscars.

She transitioned to “something new” at the March 24 Paris premiere — a white custom Louis Vuitton gown with a huge black bow and train.

“Something borrowed” came two days later in Rome, a black Armani Privé dress previously worn by Cate Blanchett, with a plunging neckline framed with stones.

Finally on Thursday, Zendaya completed the circle. “SomethingBlue,” posted Roach.

In case nobody had noticed.