What Spotify Entering Indian Market Might Mean For Prime Music And Apple Music
Swedish online music streaming service Spotify might launch it’s services in India soon. There is already quite a competition brewing between other music streaming services, with Prime music and Apple music being paid services. Saavn, Gaana Google and other companies also have free streaming that many Indians use, apart from using Youtube for their music needs. Spotify is already a couple of years late in entering the market. Recent news suggests that they plan to establish themselves and launch before the end of this month.
The company has already partnered with T series. T series is India’s largest music label and movie studio. Fans of T series have been in loggerheads to gain the most number of subscribers on Youtube with popular Youtuber Pewdiepie. This partnership will allow Spotify to gain access to T-Series’ catalogue of Bollywood and regional songs. The company is believed to be launching with a catalogue of five languages with more than 160,000 tracks across various genres.
What Others Offer
Apple Music currently provides three months of free trial before one has to subscribe in India. The subscription charges are Rs 60/month for students, Rs 120/month for individuals and Rs 190/month for families. Amazon’s Prime Music on the other hand is available for free for all Amazon Prime users which costs 129 per month or Rs 999 per year. Prime membership also adds certain other benefits such as Prime Videos, free delivery for orders from Amazon and so on. On the other hand, JioSaavn PRO is offered for Rs 99 per month. In a highly competitive market such as this, Spotify needs to up the game if it is to survive and thrive. Being a price sensitive market, the membership fees will be the deciding factor for subscribers.
Till last year Spotify claimed to have the presence in 78 markets across the world. The company also has over 250 partners across televisions, cars, laptops and speakers among others. One of India’s biggest music streaming service, Saavn was recently acquired by telecom behemoth Reliance Industries Limited. Spotify can play to their strengths and look at acquisition of Indian music streaming services as well. This will not only reduce establishment costs but also reduce competition. However, in a stock exchange filing, Spotify reported that it had a dedicated office space in India, with 308 employees. This means that the company is going to have a go at the music streaming business in India very soon. It will be interesting to see how it pans out and how Indians receive the new streaming service option.
