Gaana recently announced that it was the first Indian streaming service to reach 100 million monthly active users. Now rival JioSaavn may have reached the same milestone. In fact, MBW reported that […]
Tag: Saavn
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In India ‘the scale opportunity is telco bundles’
Reading a report about India earlier this week, we spotted a reference to the music-streaming market there needing to go beyond subscriptions and advertising for its revenues. How, though? Consultancy […]
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The rise of Indian hip-hop: ‘There’s going to be a huge opportunity…’
From labels to streaming services to brands, they’re all saying the same things: hip-hop is the hottest independent music genre in India in 2018, and it’s only going to get bigger.
Hip-hop is the fastest-growing genre for streaming service Saavn. Major label Sony Music and indie label Azadi Records are each negotiating deals with more than half a dozen new hip-hop artists. Beer brand Bira 91 wants to double the number of hip-hop gigs it stages annually to 50.
And on Valentine’s Day 2019, Bollywood film Gully Boy, which is inspired by the lives of Mumbai Rappers Divine (aka Vivian Fernandes) and Naezy (aka Naved Shaikh) will open in cinemas around the globe.
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Reliance claims $1bn valuation for Saavn and JioMusic merger
Indian telco Reliance Industries is merging its own music-streaming service JioMusic with independent player Saavn, in a deal that it says values the merged entity at more than $1bn.
It’s promising that the resulting business will offer “global reach, cross-border original content, an independent artist marketplace, consolidated data and one of the largest mobile advertising mediums”, with Reliance investing a further $100m to fuel that growth and expansion.
Saavn’s three co-founders are staying on to oversee the business, for now at least, while shareholders including Tiger Global Management, Liberty Media and Bertelsmann have sold their stakes to Reliance, which says it paid $104m for those stakes plus part of the shares owned by the co-founders. The telco claims that the deal values JioMusic at $670m.
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India music trends: Transparency, independent artists and more
India has long been one of the most interesting music markets in the world, and one that dances to its own rules, particularly with the influence of the film industry – Bollywood included. So how is the Indian market evolving in the streaming age?
A panel at Music Biz and Music Ally’s NY:LON Connect conference in New York this January offered some thoughts on that.
The panel included Priyanka Khimani, who leads the Mumbai-based practice of law firm Anand and Andand & Khimani; Neeta Ragoowansi, SVP of business development and legal affairs at NPREX; Gaurav Sharma, COO of Saavn; and Tom Rettig; VP of product at Gracenote. The moderator was Outdustry’s Ed Peto.
Posted inSandbox
Sandbox Issue 198: The Analytic Trick
Lead: Apple Music is slowly rolling out its analytics tools for artists and Saavn is following suit. YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify have been offering such tools for years – but as streaming grows, the nature and detail of consumption data delivered back to artists has to keep evolving. Competition here is clearly good as all […]
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India: The sleeping giant of digital music is ready to wake up
At the end of September this year Music Ally was invited to attend the inaugural All About Music conference in Mumbai, India. We’ve since been speaking to some of its main contributors, and taking a look at the key themes that emerged on how India is evolving as a music market.
All About Music is the brainchild of manager Tarsame Mittal. “All About Music is a platform curated to put the spotlight on the potential of India’s music industry, and to set new benchmarks and goals. Our aim is to bring the stakeholders together in a wide ‘all about music’ discussion, so we shape the opportunity, shape the future, together,” he said.
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Saavn teams with Amazon, Snapchat and new strategic investors
Indian streaming service Saavn is having a busy month, thanks to a partnership with Amazon, a marketing campaign running on Snapchat, and a pair of new strategic investors for the company.
Saavn has also seen its latest original track, ‘Bom Diggy’, become a hit not just on its own service in India, but also on other platforms including YouTube and audio-streaming services.
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Sony puts Pritam / Diplo track behind streaming paywalls
Spotify will soon be testing out making some albums only available for its paying subscribers for a week or two. But Sony Music is embarking on a separate experiment in India to see whether keeping individual tracks behind streaming paywalls will drive conversion rates on those services.
A song called ‘Phurr’ by local superstar Pritam and globetrotting producer Diplo will only be available to paying subscribers of Saavn, Gaana and other streaming services in India. It’s a big deal, because the song is from one of this year’s biggest Bollywood movies, Jab Harry Met Sejal.
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Saavn says it will be profitable by the end of 2018
Indian music-streaming service Saavn has made a bold prediction: it expects to be profitable by the end of 2018.
The company said this morning that it now has 22 million monthly active users, and has quadrupled its revenues since 2014.
No, it didn’t say what those revenues were or are. However, Saavn did talk about the progress made by the $4.99-a-month premium subscription it launched in late 2016 for its users outside south Asia.
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Roadmap to India: tips for music success in 2017 (#midem)
India is often cited alongside China and Latin America as one of the music markets with huge potential for contributing to the next 100 million music subscribers. But can non-Indian artists and labels be part of this?
A panel session at Midem today discussed some of the current trends, legal developments and opportunities to do business in India.
It included Mandar Thakur, chief operating officer at Times Music; Sonya Mazumdar, CEO of EarthSync India; and Gaurav Sharma, VP of growth and data science at Saavn. The moderator was Outdustry MD Ed Peto.
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Saavn commissions its first ‘artist originals’ track
Saavn is the latest music-streaming service to expand its original content. The Indian firm has launched an initiative called Artist Originals (AO), which will see the company commission, produce and distribute new tracks from artists in south Asia.
The first track to be released is called ‘Azaad Hu Mai’, from Indian hip-hop artist Naezy.