Music streaming apps and their Adoption Life Cycle in India

9 min readApr 25, 2020

An average Indian spends around 19.1 hours a week Listening to Music, this stat is higher than the global average of 18 hours; which means 2.7 hours of listening to music per day that translates to around 50 songs per day.

Over the past few years, streaming has emerged as the single biggest contributor to the overall growth of music consumption. Currently, these applications contribute to around 42% of the total revenue earned in the Music Industry. Indian Music Streaming market accounts for $150 million, it will grow to $400 million by the year 2023. Currently, there are around 200 million unique users listening to these music streaming services(MSS). These users spend an average of 65 mins listening to music on MSS apps.

The MSS apps in India has Target group of users mostly from 16–64 age group and in those the primary user groups are between 25–34 and 35–44 age groups as per the report provided by the Indian Music industry. Currently, there are approx 600 million internet subscribers who are potential customers to these services

Top Music Streaming Service Providers in India:

Entry into Music Streaming service is becoming easy and attractive day by day because of the increase in demand as these apps are not immersive and Customer can still consume the music while using Whatsapp, Facebook etc.

The competitive rivalry is tremendously increasing because of several new players entering the market both Local(Regional) and International.

Once a differentiator, catalogues today don’t matter as much since music companies are happy to license their titles to whomsoever, with this the supplier power is minimal.

Video Streaming services seems to be the substitute for these but they still offer different use-cases which the Video Streaming cannot offer.

Subscription models put power back into the hands of consumers, and companies have no choice but to constantly keep them engaged through exclusive content, thus the buyer power is very high and is the only deciding factor for understanding the competitiveness of your business environment, and for identifying your strategy’s potential profitability.

Amazon Music

Amazon Prime Music entered India in February 2018 exclusively for Amazon Prime members as part of the yearly or monthly subscriptions. Amazon had launched its music streaming service limited to Amazon Echo members initially and then extended the service over mobile applications and internet. Amazon provides the prime service at a bundle pricing of INR 999 per annum

Highlights: Hands-free with Alexa, with which you can play or control the music as you want. . curated playlists by celeberities is one of the standout feature.

Among all the Music application, amazon offers its services at the second-lowest price at 83.25 INR and that too with other prime benefits, this will be the driving force for getting subscribers for the app. But the toughest part would be to maintain them as MAUs if this happens then this App would Sureshot be one of the Top Music apps.

Apple Music

A music app launched initially to cater to Apple users, Apple Music was launched in India in 2015 and is currently available for both iOS and Android users.

Highlights: Perfect Dark mode, would be of interest to all those new-age dark mode enthusiasts. Time Synced Lyrics, one of the major reasons why someone should use this app instead of any other app.

Despite being Apple brand and known for its pricing, it is offering its services like any other app and has gone to extent of offering a 6-month free subscription. There is nothing which can stop this app from becoming one of the Top Music streaming apps

Gaana

Gaana is a music streaming service set-up by a leading media conglomerate, The Times Group. Launched in 2010, homegrown music streaming app Gaana has been leading the market in India along with crossing a 150 Mn users mark in February 2020.

Highlights: Identify Song feature which lets you identify the music around you and plays that song for you. Buzz on Gaana which lets you check stories, news, new videos etc.

Gaana is leading the Music Streaming service Market with 30% market share. Given its understanding of the Local audience, it is going to continue to stay on Top.

Hungama Music

Started as a digital Media Company in the year 1999. In 2016, Xiaomi invested US$ 25 million (INR 170 crore) in Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. In March 2018, Xiaomi, further leveraged its partnership with Hungama to integrate the music streaming service with its Mi Music app.

Highlights: Mood Discovery, finds and plays music to match the mood. This feature allows discovering music based on preferences — Mood, Tempo, Language, Genre or Era. Gym Mode, which lets you groove to musics with just Swipe left and right actions

Given Xiaomi’s strong smartphone sales during the last few years in the Indian smartphone market, the app has the potential to become one of the most used applications for music streaming.

JioSaavn

Saavn was started in the year 2007. Saavn, it was acquired by India’s leading digital services provider, Reliance Jio Infocomm, in March 2018 Saavn being rebranded JioSaavn.

Highlights: Surprise me! a feature which provides the listener with a set of a randomized playlist. Jio Tunes, Jio users can set their favourite songs as caller tunes.

Jio is currently moving in the direction of becoming Country’s largest Internet provider, this would help the Jiosaavn the required reach it needs. Already Jio Saavn boasts of around 105 million MAUs, it already one of the Top Music apps will continue to remain there.

Spotify

Spotify is the largest music streaming service in terms of global users. After entering India in February 2019, the world’s largest music streaming service, Spotify had hit 1 million users in a week. By the end of 2019, Spotify intensified its focus in India with various offerings, including a ‘Lite’ app, playlists catering to regional language music and listeners, and launching original podcasts on its platform

Highlights: Spotify’s Daily miz playlists are spot on, no doubt that the company invests huge on the Algorithms. Its Original podcasts are most sought after

Being the Global giant in the Music streaming service and having right understanding of its audience, there will be no meaning to a discussion on Music streaming services and Spotify not being mentioned in it.

Wynk Music

Wynk by Airtel came into the picture in 2014 and was one of the first music streaming services in India which let users download and listen to the songs while offline. It launched as a free service for Airtel subscribers.

Highlights: Hello Tunes, an airtel user can set their favourite tune as their caller tune. Sleep Timer, which will stop the music at a predetermined Time.

Wynk Music offers its service at the lowest price of 49 rs. Being the leading internet service provider in the country, Airtel can make wynk music get its reachability. But it upon on the product to capture the users if done correctly the App has high potentials of being in the Top Music apps.

Youtube Music

After entering India in March 2019, YouTube Music overtook Spotify in terms of gaining quick popularity in the Indian market. The music streaming service recorded 3 Mn app downloads within 3 weeks of its launch exceeding Spotify’s 1 Mn users mark obtained in a week. Probably the biggest threat to other music streaming apps in India at the moment.

Highlights: Hotlist which provides the latest and the popular Songs/Videos

Youtube being Youtube, having the required infrastructure, reachability and brand will catapult its subscription figures and put itself in the Top List.

Comparison of MSS apps:

Product adoption Lifecycle

Innovators:

The innovators are the first group of people to invest in your product. These People are Technology Enthusiasts. They Can ignore any missing elements in the product. They would typically want the product for free and are the Gatekeepers for the Early Adopters group

Early Adopters

Like innovators, early adopters tend to be ahead of everyone else, willing to test the waters. These people are the Visionaries. They will help supply the missing elements in the product. They are not price-sensitive.

They have a problem
Know they have the problem
Actively seeking a solution

Early Majority

The people in the early majority are usually pragmatic and will only buy something once it’s been tested and has proven its value. They understand the real-world issues and tradeoffs. They want to see the working solution in production before adopting it.

They have the problem
Know they have the problem
Not actively seeking a solution

Late Majority

The people who are a bit sceptical about your product. Once they’ve put their worries to rest, they buy your product. They are Conservatives. They are risk-averse and price-sensitive, need completely pre-assembled systems.

Have the Problem
They don’t know they have the problem
Not actively seeking a solution

Laggards

These are the people who buy your product after all the hype has died down. Laggards might be extreme sceptics or people who have only heard about your product a long time after you launched it. They disbelieve the productivity improvement arguments. They can be a formidable opposition to early adoption

Don’t have the Problem
They don’t know they have the problem
Not actively seeking a solution

Conclusion:

As of now, only the local players like Gaana and Jio saavan seems to have crossed the chasm, in future other MSS will have to cross the chasm in order to reach the majority of the Indian Market and cater their services.

The increasing preference for music streaming services is one of the major reasons for the music streaming service market growth. The Improvement of Internet Penetration in India is going to further accelerate the growth of the market.

One of the major benefits anticipated from the music streaming services is providing a check on the piracy and thus helping the Music Community and its contributors. This will be the single most accelerator for the growth of MSS in Indian Market