Indian music retailer Music World is shuttering its stores across the country as sales and margins plummet.

Its largest store in Kolkata is scheduled to close on July 1.

The company said digitisation in the music industry, piracy and increasing number of consumers downloading music straight from the internet make its business unviable.

“Music World has for the last 16 years been India’s premier music and home video retail chain. However, in the last few years, the onset of digitisation in music and the shift in consumer preferences towards music and video downloads have rendered the business model unviable,” said the company’s corporate head in marketing Sanjay Gupta.

Music World opened its first store in 1997 and had some 40 stores during its peak, before starting to downside in April 2012.

“We have closed all the shops. Our flagship store on Park Street will be the last to down shutters this month-end,” said a company official.