Flipkart's Online Music Retailer 'Flyte' To Close

30 May 2013

Online retailer Flipkart has just announced the closure of it's Flyte MP3 store which it launched in February 2012 alongside partners NH7. The date the store will cease to offfer digital music is 17 June 2013.

“We set up Flyte MP3 a year back in what was an extremely nascent industry. The aim was to bring legal digital content to consumers in India. In a short span of time, we built a massive digital music catalogue at very affordable prices along with a loyal base of nearly 100,000 customers (...) However, we have realised that the music downloads business in India will not reach scale unless several problem areas such as music piracy and easy micro-payments are solved in great depth." - Mekin Maheshwari, Head Digital Media & Payments

Yesterday, Flipkart sent out an email to users informing them that the MP3 store “will no longer be operational after June 17, 2013”. The mail went on to tell customers to use their Flyte balance, and confirmed that any unspent money will be refunded in due time.

"If you would like to purchase any more music before the Flyte MP3 store shuts down, then please do so by June 17, 2013. All the MP3 files that you have purchased from Flyte on or before June 17, 2013 will continue to be available for download in your digital library till August 18, 2013. So do remember to download all your favourite music by then.

Dates to remember:

1. Monday, June 17, 2013: You will no longer be able to purchase MP3 files from Flyte after this date. The remaining balance in your Flyte wallet, if any, will be refunded to you.

2. Sunday, August 18, 2013: You will no longer be able to download your purchased MP3 files from your digital library after this date. So please download all your music by then.

So long – and thank you for being a part of this journey"

It's a shame that an online music retailer which in its first year had built a catalogue of over 5 million songs from more than 12,000 worldwide labels, with 2.5 over million paid downloads, has had to shut shop. With iTunes only recently entering the market, we're hoping this will quickly change. Buy more music people.

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