Spotify, the world’s top music streaming service, is finally coming to India. The Swedish company is looking beyond the US and Europe, as it eyes India, Russia and Africa in the race for global music streaming dominance.
The announcement was made during its ‘Investor Day’ event held in New York.
“We’re working on launching in some of the biggest markets in the world like India, Russia, and Africa,” Musically.com quoted Spotify’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek.
This is the first time the company has acknowledged its plans to start its services in India. Music streaming giant Spotify recently started its services in Isreal, Romania, South Africa, and Vietnam. Spotify operates across 65 countries in the world and has over 159 million users (including 71 million premium subscribers).
While the company hasn’t indicated when it plans to kick-start its services in India, the launch is likely to happen soon. In its IPO filing last month, Spotify noted that it has over 308 employees in 21 countries, including India. It was reported last month that Spotify had leased a commercial office space in India’s financial capital Mumbai. Akshat Harbola, a former Google executive, currently heads Spotify’s India operations.
Spotify is planning to go public on April 3. The company’s entry into India will be watched closely by the global investor community. Spotify faces some stiff competition not only from Apple and Amazon but also from home-grown music streaming apps such as Saavn and Gaana.
Last month, the world’s largest e-commerce platform Amazon launched its Music streaming service, Amazon Music, in India. The music streaming service has been bundled in with a Prime subscription, which gives you access to a catalogue of “tens of millions” of songs in English as well as regional languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and Telugu and more.
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