THE SOUND OF STREAMING

Two years after its entry into the Indian market, streaming giant Spotify is already among the top three players in the growing audio OTT industry. Key to its success has been its localisation and diversified offer strategy.

- Prerna Lidhoo

A ROUND BLACK THIN disc with circular grooves was avant-garde in the 1940s. Placed on a bulky instrument called the phonograph, it would magically play music for a few swaying generations. Vinyl records were trendy then. Today, they’re quaint at best. And archaic, in truth. Over the last few decades, technology has changed all aspects of the music industry, including how people listen to it. You hardly play music anymore, for instance. You stream it. At the forefront of this streaming revolution is a Swedish company you know of as Spotify.

Since it was set up in 2006 by entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon to combat the growing problem of piracy in the music industry, it has grown to become the leading player in the global streaming industry, with 345 million users and 155 million paying subscribers across 178 markets.

In the Indian market, too, which has around 10 players, Spotify has managed to hold the third spot behind Gaana and JioSaavn, according to a Kantar-Vtion study. What is more remarkable is that it has achieved this in just two years. In fact, by the time Spotify entered the country in February 2019, Indians had already warmed up to music streaming services like JioSaavn, Wynk, and Gaana. But the late entry has proved to be “more of a boon”, says Spotify’s India MD Amarjit Singh Batra. “I would call it the late mover advantage because we’ve been able to see what’s working and what’s not,” he points out. “We’ve learnt that what we thought was a mature market... is not yet mature enough. We’re educating people about streaming and that is something nobody invested enough in while the market was expanding.”