Spotify Technology SA, the Swedish paid music streaming service, reached over one million users — both premium and free tiers — within a week of launching its services in the country.
Its pricing in India is far below what the company is charging consumers elsewhere: the premium service will be free for 30 days and then will be approximately $1.67 per month. In addition, Spotify offers a variety of other billing plans, including single-day access, as well as plans paid in advance for 3 months at $5:60; 6 months at $10.35, and a whole year at $17.10. Students receive a 50% discount.
Spotify India’s managing director, Amarjit Singh Batra, said offline play will be important for the platform here. “We want to be a part of the user’s music journey across platforms. ‘Spotify on Stage’ is where we try to replicate a playlist on stage. We’ve got a successful run of this in many countries. That’s something we’ve started discussion on in India as well,” he said. “Another thing is Fan First wherein we create intimate experiences between fans and artists. We connect the super fans and artists and let them create music together, do jamming together,” he added.
Spotify signed licensing agreements with all major Indian labels such as T-Series and Zee Music, as also international labels with a strong India presence such as Sony and Universal. The service is adding over 30,000 songs a day to boost its India-focused library. That gives Indian consumers access to over 40 million songs.
