Spotify, one of the most popular music streaming services in the world, officially had a launch in India on February 26. As of now, it is available across 79 countries, has 207 million active users, of which 96 million are pay customers.
Rightfully then, there was much noise, curiosity and expectations from them and the rates that they would finally offer to consumers in India.
Within a week of their launch, Spotify has amassed 1 million subscriptions. It is now considered a big contender for Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, in the music portal domain.
The keen user interest prompted its co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek to mention this in a recent investor meet. He said, “it makes us feel comfortable that we have a good chance of being a very, very strong player in the Indian market”.
Spotify’s free app offers local and international music for Indian listeners and also has a range of upgradations available as premium services.
The 1 million number is a huge push for the company but trade analysts feel it could have been higher, because of the brand value attached with Spotify.
Digital content consumption is on a high and the entry could just be timed right for the big break in the Indian market.
According to figures from reliable sources, Indian music industry body, IMI, India has about 150 million subscribers for music streaming services, of which around 14% either use a service bundled with their mobile service provider or have signed up for Amazon Prime which includes the Amazon music streaming services.
As a part of their India strategy, Spotify will focus on regional languages, in addition to Hindi.
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As per reports, an average Indian internet user spends 21.5 hours listening to music, per week.
Spotify will now be giving users access to more than 40 million songs and 3 billion playlists across Indian and international music.
In January 2019, Spotify had signed a global content deal with T-Series for their entire Indian song collection including Bollywood and regional movie soundtracks, non-film albums and emerging artist content.