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.



Second Season of ‘Pachinko’ Explores Challenges for Ethnic Koreans in Japan

 (L-R) South Korean actors Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho, Kim Min-ha, Jung Eun-chae and Kim Sung-kyu attend a press conference to promote the second season of the Apple TV+ series "Pachinko", a drama that follows the story of an ethnic Korean family living in Japan, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, in Seoul on August 23, 2024. (AFP)
(L-R) South Korean actors Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho, Kim Min-ha, Jung Eun-chae and Kim Sung-kyu attend a press conference to promote the second season of the Apple TV+ series "Pachinko", a drama that follows the story of an ethnic Korean family living in Japan, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, in Seoul on August 23, 2024. (AFP)
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Second Season of ‘Pachinko’ Explores Challenges for Ethnic Koreans in Japan

 (L-R) South Korean actors Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho, Kim Min-ha, Jung Eun-chae and Kim Sung-kyu attend a press conference to promote the second season of the Apple TV+ series "Pachinko", a drama that follows the story of an ethnic Korean family living in Japan, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, in Seoul on August 23, 2024. (AFP)
(L-R) South Korean actors Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho, Kim Min-ha, Jung Eun-chae and Kim Sung-kyu attend a press conference to promote the second season of the Apple TV+ series "Pachinko", a drama that follows the story of an ethnic Korean family living in Japan, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, in Seoul on August 23, 2024. (AFP)

The second season of “Pachinko,” opening Friday, delicately captures the plight of ethnic Koreans brought to Japan during colonial rule and their descendants, exploring themes of home and identity through several generations.

The award-winning series, based on the New York Times bestselling novel, returns to Apple TV+ with eight episodes that follow four generations of an immigrant Korean family living in Japan since before World War II. The star-studded cast includes Oscar-winning actor Youn Yuh-jung and Korean actor Lee Minho.

Many ethnic Koreans were brought to Japan, often forcibly, to work in mines and factories during the country’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea. They were treated as second-class citizens and faced discrimination, which the series portrays.

Youn, who plays the older version of protagonist Sunja, said she was largely unfamiliar with the situation of ethnic Koreans in Japan — known as Zainichi Koreans — before she spoke with actor Soji Arai, who plays Mozasu, the son of her character. Arai was born into an ethnic Korean family in Japan.

“It broke my heart and I cried inside because I felt so bad after hearing about their stories,” Youn told The Associated Press.

The second season continues Sunja’s story as she struggles to feed her sons Noa and Mozasu during the war.

In the series, ethnic Koreans face discrimination generation after generation. In one episode, a Japanese worker at a wartime Nagasaki factory refers to his Korean colleagues as “roaches” that “keep multiplying.”

Decades later, Sunja's grandson Solomon nearly explodes at a Japanese store clerk whom he thinks is showing discrimination over his Korean heritage. He senses that discrimination will follow him even after attaining academic and professional credentials.

The series is in Japanese, Korean and English with subtitles and is based on Korean-American author Min Jin Lee's novel, titled after a Japanese game played in arcades where ethnic Koreans often worked in jobs typically shunned by Japanese.

Youn said she portrayed Sunja as “intimidated, scared and feeling small,” believing discrimination is her fault due to endless exposure to it. Youn added that she has felt similarly in her own life, having an “inferiority complex” over her struggles with the English language.

Around half a million ethnic Koreans sill live in Japan. Although many have become naturalized Japanese citizens, about half a million have not and are officially considered foreigners.

Executive producer and showrunner Soo Hugh said she was “nervous” about how the show would be received among Zainichi Koreans, but that she was happy to learn that it had resonated “really emotionally."

“This is their story,” she told the AP, adding that she had to unlearn previous history education to understand “from the point of view of the people on the ground,” including those in Nagasaki.

When Youn was asked if she was concerned about playing a role in a series touching on sensitive parts of East Asian history, Youn said no. “We are talking about the past,” she said. “I am not a politician, so it doesn’t matter to me.”

Hugh said the series gradually transitions from the family’s day-to-day survival to answering big questions about their shifting identities: “What does it mean to live a good life ... knowing that Japan is now my home?”

These are familiar questions to Hugh, who is Korean American.

“So many Korean immigrants come to America and think, ’We’ll make a better life, but I’m not going to die in America because Korea is my home. ... You know, a year goes by, then a year, another year, and then another year,” Hugh said.

“It must feel really sad to know that you’re not going to die where you want to die. And that’s, I think, something so many of our characters confront in this show,” she said.

Youn said that people will always carry their identity with them despite circumstances. “I see many people who try their best to erase (their Korean identity),” she said. “I really don’t like that. There is no need to do that.”

“Pachinko” season two is available on Apple TV+ platforms.