Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform has struck a deal with Indian music label company Saregama to list its over 100,000 songs on its app for the India market.
The music tracks include songs from over 25 local languages in genres such as film, carnatic, Hindustani classical, and devotional music. Saregama is one of the oldest music label companies in the world which has now delved into TV production as well.
The licensing deal with Saregama comes a year after the Indian music label company had filed a copyright infringement case against Spotify in the Delhi High Court. As a result, Spotify had to remove over 100,000 Saregama-owned music tracks from its platform. To be sure, the company already has a deal with a distributor to stream Saregama’s songs outside India.
“We are happy to partner with Spotify and make our entire catalog available for listeners across the globe, now including India. We are sure, listeners would be really happy with this addition,” Vikram Mehra, managing director, Saregama India, said in a statement.
Since the beginning of this year, Spotify has been focusing to strengthen its music library in India and to that effect has bought music streaming licenses from major music label companies. Earlier in March, Spotify ended its long legal battle with Warner Music Group and struck a global licensing partnership which includes India market as well. A few weeks ago, Spotify signed a similar partnership deal with Shemaroo Entertainment and acquired its 25,000 music tracks which span in different genres and languages.
In its Q4 2019 earnings call, the music streaming company reported a 31% growth in its monthly active user (MAUs) base year-on-year. The company, in February this year said it has 271 million MAUs worldwide, of which 124 million are paid subscribers. It didn’t give any India-specific numbers, where it runs a paid subscription as well as ad-supported streaming model.
In India, Spotify not only competes with global music streaming giants such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and ByteDance’s latest entrant Resso, it also has to vie for users’ attention who frequent to Indian platforms such as Gaana, JioSaavn, Hungama, and others.
According to a market research firm TechSci Research, the music streaming market in India will reach over USD 400 million by 2023.