Analysis of the product adoption lifecycle for music streaming services in India
“Music is the shorthand of emotion.” ― Leo Tolstoy
This saying is particularly true for Indians, who love their music and use it to express their emotions (think Bollywood!). Right from classical to rock, from regional folk music to punk, we have a huge fan base of music lovers. Add to the fact that mobile phones and data package has become much affordable, there are currently more than 200 Million unique users streaming music in India1.
This fan base will further grow as the number of internet users in India is expected to cross 735 Million by 2021. Certainly, its music to the ears for the online streaming apps in India!
NICHE PLAYERS
There are innumerable online streaming apps available in India. Few niche players are referred to in the image below:
In this article, I will present my analysis of the product adoption of online music streaming apps in India.
PROFILES OF USERS & THEIR ADOPTION CURVE
Any new app/product typically goes through five stages of user adoption. In this section, I will explain these five stages and describe user profiles in each stage of product adoption. While doing so, I will present my views and analysis of the adoption curve of the latest and most popular streaming app to enter India — Spotify — which touched 1 Million users within a week of its launch in India. Spotify is headquartered in Sweden and is the world’s largest music streaming service.
1) Innovators — These constitute a niche set of 2.5% user base who usually have early access to the products. They display higher risk-taking ability and are willing to invest significantly more to get first access to a product. They are generally tech-enthusiasts and reviewers of new technology/products/apps.
For an app like iTunes, innovators are the users who already were loyal to everything Apple. They would be the first users of iTunes. Similarly, when Airtel launched Wynk app, the innovators would have been the users who already had Airtel subscription and were using Airtel app on their phone.
For Spotify, users who already had access to Spotify via VPN access were the innovators.
2) Early adopters — These constitute a niche set of 13.5% user base. They’re the ones who would form an opinion about your product. They are also loyal to one app and are okay to pay for the premium services offered by the app.
Before Spotify was launched in India, it was already very popular across the globe with music lovers. In India also music lovers already knew about the app and thanks to the mouth of publicity music lovers were influenced quickly and started using the app. These were the early adopters.
3) Early majority — They constitute nearly one-third of the total population or 34%. These users adopt a product after a varying degree of time. They are in need of the product but before buying would do extensive research to make sure that they are getting the best in the market.
When Spotify was launched, it was a great success as it could register 200 Million subscribers in the first two months. This means the bridge of crossing over to the early majority users was done in a very short span of time. The news of Spotify launching in India spread like wildfire and every millennial wanted to get on to the bandwagon. Hence a lot of users started using this app and became early majority users.
4) Late majority — Next comes the late majority who is the one-third of the population at about 34%. They adopt an innovation after most of the average society has already adopted it.
Spotify (and all other streaming apps) is already thinking of ways to increase the user base. The ways they can target late majority users are by offering personalized and localized content.
5) Laggards — They constitute the balance one-sixth of the market. They are typically the last ones to adopt any innovation and generally avoid changing. They may be typically also older than some of the other adopters even from an age group standpoint. They also are very strong deal seekers and end up purchasing the product only when it is on a heavy discount.
To target this user base, Spotify would have to offer subscription at reduced rates or offer more features such as “family subscriptions”.
In general, the user base of the online streaming apps is primarily the millennials, i.e. people between the ages of 16 and 35. Given the popularity of the current music apps and their user base crossing 100 Million mark, it is safe to assume that the overall user adoption stage for this industry is: Early majority and for Spotify it is now reaching out to Late majority users.
GROWTH AND PRODUCT ADOPTION COMPARISON ACROSS 5 MAJOR PLAYERS
Given below is a comparison of various music streaming services on various parameters such as user-based, subscription charged and value-added services offered:
FACTORS AFFECTING MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE ADOPTION
Although the total market in India will cross 735 Million in 2021, there is fierce competition in the market. Hence it would be challenging for existing players to increase their service adoption.
Some of the challenges are highlighted below:
GROWTH HACKS FOR INCREASED SERVICE ADOPTION
Even though there are challenges, there are still a lot of things that these apps can do to increase their consumer base. Few such growth hacks to increase user adoption are suggested below:
CONCLUSION
With a population of 1.3 Billion (and growing), India is undoubtedly one of the biggest markets for any industry. The rise of affordable smartphones and cheap mobile data package (courtesy Reliance’s Jio SIM in 2016 and governments Digital India initiative) has seen a spike in streaming apps download in India.
To navigate the competition and to increase the user base and revenues — the streaming apps in India will have to think out of the box and come up with unique features in their respective products.
SOURCES
1. https://musically.com/2020/02/10/india-growth-continues-with-200m-people-now-streaming-music/
2. https://inc42.com/resources/hottest-music-streaming-apps-in-india-2020/
