Flipkart launches Digital MP3 Music download store FLYTE

E-commerce player Flipkart has entered the digital content market with the launch of ‘Flyte’, its digital music store. Mr Sameer Nigam, Vice-President, Digital at Flipkart, said that the online store would is also considering expanding its presence in the segment with launch of e-books and video games. The store, which gives Flipkart more similarity with Amazon, the company it is often compared to, contains more than one million DRM-free MP3 files from 150,000 albums.

Flyte allows users to download music in the form of individual songs or entire albums from a collection backed by leading Indian and international music companies. The service has all kinds of artists and albums ranging from Western to Carnatic and it is only going to grow with new music being added in.

Flyte is located within Flipkart but has its own cart called ‘Digital Cart’. You can easily preview all the songs and download them in an MP3 format at various bitrates like 64kbps, 128kbps and 320kbps, with the latter ‘CD quality’ available for 99 percent of the catalog. The price of tracks, which can be bought individually, begins at $0.12 (6 INR) with albums priced as low as $0.51 (25 INR).  An album on an average will cost you Rs.150 to Rs.200. Users are able to download each file four times in total, allowing them to put content on multiple devices directly from the site.

The Flyte Download Manager is currently available Windows and Mac operating systems and Flipkart says the Linux version will be released shortly. The Flyte Download Manager is a 4.3 MB download for Windows and 6.3 MB for the Mac version. There did not seem to be any noticeable difference in download speed while downloading the purchased files manually and via the Flyte Download Manager. The advantage of the download manager is that downloading multiple files is a one click process.

Flipkart made all the right moves leading to Flyte. Flipkart has acquired Mime360 and Chakpak. After that, Flipkart has launched its Wallet functionality which gives an option to buy goods from the store once a certain amount is accrued in the wallet. The wallet functionality seemed rather limiting at that time. With the launch of Flyte and the micro-payments it requires, Flipkart wallet is now extremely useful. Standard payment methods, such as credit and debit cards and Internet banking, are available alongside Flipkart Wallet, the company’s own system, while gift vouchers can be redeemed on Flyte too.