JioSaavn, Gaana, Apple Music or Spotify: who really rules the Indian Music Market?
With more than 100 million active users, they are amongst the top music streaming apps in India.
India is the second most populated country in the world, just after China. This means billions of ears eager to listen to their favourite artists while going to work, walking down the street or waiting for the bus. People taking their smartphones out of their pockets to select the latest hit. Spotify, JioSaavn, Gaana and Apple Music are the most common apps in Indian’s devices. These companies fight for sitting in the Indian music market throne. Who really rules over the Indian music market? Let’s have a look at it.
JioSaavn
The Hindi streaming service has recently announced that it has hit 100 million monthly active users (MAUs), and it is expected to reach 200 million in the next two years. That makes JioSaavn a strong candidate to rule over the 225 cities form India. It is said to have a catalogue made of more than 45 million songs. It has also bet for creating their own international and Indian podcasts and original shows. Some examples are #NoFilterNeha (where famous Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia chats with her friends from the world of entertainment), The Styleogram (fashion podcast) or Audiogyan (specialized in the performing arts).
Last month, JioSaavn launched a discount deal through which users could subscribe to 12 months of its ‘Pro’ for just Rs 299 (€ 3.77). Media claims that it has become India’s answer to Spotify and Apple Music.
Source: JioSaavn home page
Gaana
JioSaavan is not the only streaming platform that has reached 100 million MAUs in the last weeks. Ganna hit those numbers too, boasting for being the first platform in doing so. Its competence with JioSaavan is hard since it also expects to reach 200 million MAUs in the incoming two years. The platform has recently launched two new features: Gaana Video and an Artist Dashboard. Gaana’s CEO Prashan Agarwal says that with the launch of the video, the idea is to increase the engagement time of the user on the app and increase the retention. They have also changed their advertisement strategy and now include multilanguage ads. Gaana has recently cut annual subscription prices in order to beat Spotify. Now costs Rs 299/year, just as its main Indian rival.
Source: Gaana home page.
Spotify
The Swedish company launched in India in February, reaching more than 2 million users on the service since then. This means it has expanded its market scope to 79 countries, leading most of them. India welcomed Spotify with open arms, but as we explain in this post, Daniel Ek’s company faces challenges like piracy, the catalogue or population’s price sensibility. It has recently added 1,60,000 songs from T-Series in Hindi and regional languages, but it is more expensive than other streaming services since Premium version with extra features costs 119 rupees (about € 1.49) per month.
Source: Spotify
Apple Music
JioSaavn, Ghaana and Spotify are currently absorbed in a war price in India since all of them have slashed their prices recently-you may have realized they are in the same league. Apple Music has been the latest player to join this battle, dropping prices until Rs 99/month (€1,26). The Cupertino company has also lowered the prices of their devices. For instance, the iPhone XR dropped 22% in price down to Rs 59,900 ($866).
Source: Apple Music.
