| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail, record shop and home video |
| Founded | 13 August 1946 (The Gramophone Company), 3 November 2000 (Saregama) |
| Headquarters | Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Area served | Global |
| Key people | Apurv Nagpal (Managing Director) |
| Products | Music cassettes, Compact Disc, VCDs, DVDs, Gramophone records (formerly) |
| Parent | RPG Group |
| Subsidiaries | Saregama Home Video |
| Website | http://www.saregama.com/ |
Saregama India Limited, formerly The Gramophone Company of India is an Indian music company. Saregama also works in the home video business. It uses the music labels Saregama, RPG Music and HMV.
Saregama is located in Kolkata, West Bengal.
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In 1901, operations started as the first overseas branch of Electrical & Musical Industries Limited, EMI, London. The company was incorporated on 13 August 1946 with the name of “The Gramophone Co. (India) Limited”. The name of the Company was subsequently changed to “The Gramophone Co. of India Limited” and with effect from 1 April 1956 the word “Private” was added to its name. It was converted into a public company on 28 October 1968 and consequently the name of the company was changed to “The Gramophone Company of India Limited”.
RPG Group takes over this company in 1985 from EMI. In 2005, the last 8% remaining EMI stake in this company were sold, making it completely unrelated to EMI. Now, Indian operations of EMI is operated under Virgin Records India, which set up in 1998.
The name of the company was changed from “The Gramophone Company of India Limited” to “Saregama India Limited” vide a fresh Certificate of Incorporation issued by the Registrar of Companies, West Bengal, on November 3, 2000.
Saregama provides the largest music repertoire across all genres and languages, which includes the top-recording artists of the past hundred years and some of the greatest names in music.
The Gramophone Company has always been better known as HMV (His Master's Voice) in India. So strong has been this recognition, that after the RPG Group takeover, it could not phase out the brand. RPG Group has been using the brand under license from the former parent company, EMI. It has tried to introduce parallel brands, such as RPG Music.
In an attempt to build its own brand, on 3 November 2000, RPG Group decided to change the company's name to Saregama India Limited, and also introduce a music label of the same name and use this and HMV for eight years on new recordings, and on old ones for 23 years, thereby attempting to gradually transfer the strong recognition from HMV to the Saregama brand.
Saregama is the largest record label in India. Saregama has an inventory of more than 600 cassettes and CDs. Saregama provides services in the following form:
Saregama is the largest international home video provider in India. The following production house's DVDs and VCDs are released under the label of Saregama:
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