Music-streaming giant Spotify is inching closer to its much anticipated debut in India. No, we don’t have any concrete information about the launch, but recent news from the company suggests that it is almost here.
Spotify has joined hands with T-Series, a music super house in India, to globally offer its Bollywood and regional music soundtracks, as well other audio content available with the company.
This, according to the company statement means that over 160,000 songs will be accessible from Spotify’s global library, wherever the platform is available right now.
The fact that Spotify has managed to crack the deal with a giant like T-Series could be good news for users who’ve been waiting for the music streaming app to officially launch in the country.
Having said that, Spotify without revealing its plans for the Indian market just yet, says that the sheer number of Indian users spread across different parts of the world, was the reason behind this global deal.
The deal will see Spotify’s worldwide audience gain access to T-Series’ entire Indian song catalogue including Bollywood and regional movie soundtracks, as well as a wealth of non-film albums and emerging artist content. With over 160,000 songs, the T-Series catalogue boasts many of the most popular Indian songs recorded over the past 30 years and will be available to all Spotify users from today.Spotify statement
Spotify claims to have over 200 million users, with over 78 million of them as its premium subscribers.
The company estimates that over 30 million people residing in major Spotify markets like USA, Mexico, Brazil and UK among others are of Indian origin.
And interestingly, it also says (probably from the available data) that over 4 million users are consuming Indian music content on Spotify regularly and Bollywood is the most popular search term on the app.
Spotify has surely taken its own sweet time to launch in the country, most of which might have to do with the stringent licensing regulations over here.
It remains to be seen how Spotify plans to tackle its rivals like Gaana, Amazon Prime Music and Apple Music among others in a market where streaming (especially subscription-driven services) are just about taking off.
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