While it took quite a while for Spotify to finally be available in India, users in the country were apparently just waiting for it to finally become official. This became evident in the number of users that registered to the platform in the first week of its availability. According to Spotify, its platform in India had managed to sign up a million users in less than one week. Since its debut in India last week, the global music streaming platform managed to reach the million user milestone in just six days.
Spotify, unfortunately, did not reveal just how many of its new 1 million users were paying subscribers as opposed to users who were just using the company's ad-based service. The company also did not reveal what its targets were in terms of its presence in India. Spotify initially announced its plans to become available in India in March of last year. Despite its desire to expand its service to the country, the company was having numerous legal issues with some of its major record label partners.
One of the record labels that was having issues with allowing their content to be streamed in India is Warner Music Group. The record label even filed an injunction last week when it heard that Spotify was pushing through with its release in India. The label currently owns rights to music from stars like Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Music with rights being held by Warner Music will currently not be available to stream in India. Spotify is apparently still trying to resolve the dispute.
The company is still confident that it still has a lot of other music to offer to Indian listeners. Spotify had even partnered with the country's biggest record label, T-Series, to further expand its allure to local users. With its rising number of users, Spotify hopes to further increase its global user base, which now stands at around 200 million.
Despite already officially becoming available in India, Spotify still has to overcome a lot of hurdles to become a big player in the country. Several local players, such as Gaana and JioSaavn, hold the majority of the music streaming market in the country.
JioSaavn in particular, which is owned by the country's richest man Mukesh Ambani, boasts a user base of 250 million. Gaana on the other hand, which is backed by China's Tencent, reportedly has a user base of over 80 million in India. Spotify also has to contend with its main global rivals. Streaming services from Apple, Amazon, and Google, already established their presence in the country, which means that Spotify may be at a disadvantage as far as being first is concerned.
