It has been a week since the Spotify launched in India, and it surely seems to have been a good week for the music streaming service. The company has confirmed that it has clocked 1 million users in the first week of launch in India. This includes users who signed up for the Spotify Premium service as well as those who are using the free subscription tier. This is indeed a solid start for the streaming service, as it finally launched its services in India after some delays. And not to forget the ongoing legal battles with Warner Music.
It will be hard to compare this growth with how Spotify did in other countries it launched in, because the company rarely gives out numbers for such short periods. At least thus far.
According to the latest numbers by research firm Deloitte and Indian Music industry body IMI, India has about 150 million subscribers for music streaming services—of which about 14 percent either use a service bundled with their mobile plan or have signed up for Amazon Prime which includes the Amazon Music streaming service. As of last August, Gaana had reported 75 million users.
The legal issues with Warner Music mean that when you fire up the Spotify app in India right now, what you will get is a very limited number of songs from artists such as Pharrell Williams, Linkin Park, Steve Aoki, Led Zeppelin, Beyonce, Lukas Graham, Madonna, George Michael, Katy Perry, Radiohead, Rihanna, SlashChris Stapleton, Rod Temperton, Justin Tranter and Twenty One Pilot, to name a few. For the search attempts we made, most of the tracks for artists such as Linkin Park, Pharrell Williams and Led Zeppelin for instance, were rescued by the “Featuring XYZ artist” collection of other albums and compilations that would have a handful picks from the works of these artists. As things stand, Spotify and Warner Music seem to be nowhere close to a deal.
However, Spotify in India is focusing on regional language content as well, which means apart from Hindi, you will access a huge library of music in Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
In India, Spotify charges a lot lesser than it does in the US, for instance. You start off with a 30-day free trial for the Spotify Premium service, post which you will pay Rs 119 per month for full access to all the music and the premium features in the app. There is also the option of doing a pre-paid sign-up to Premium for specific durations—for instance, Spotify Premium for 1 day, it will cost you Rs 13. A week-long premium subscription is priced at Rs 39, a monthly subscription is priced at Rs 129, its Rs 389 for 3 months, Rs 719 for 6 months and Rs 1189 for an year.
At this time, Spotify will be available as apps for your smartphone and tablet (free download for Android and iOS), Windows 10 PCs, macOS computing devices, Android TV, Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox and also available via the web browser. Spotify is also compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in-car infotainment platforms.
In India, Spotify will have to contend with competition from the likes of JioSaavn (Ad-supported free tier, or JioSaavn Pro at Rs 99 per month) and Gaana (Ad-supported free tier, or Gaana Plus at Rs 99 per month, both of which also offer a free ad-supported subscription option, as well as the familiar global competition such as Apple Music (Rs 129 per month), Amazon Music (bundled with the Rs 999 per year Prime subscription) and Google Play Music (Rs 89 per month).
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