
Spotify adds 1M unique listeners in India in less than a week - doener
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spotify-india-idUSKCN1QL22C
======
sanketskasar
Pretty sure a high percentage of these listeners are using free tier. And most
of them using it just to brag that they are listening to music on Spotify.

Their music collection is one of the worst among all services present in
India. Lots of major international records are not available. Regional music
collection is not good. Only the mainstream/popular content is available.
Bought the premium subscription on very first day of launch. Tried using it
for few days. Found major stuff missing.

Cancelled and got the refund. Kudos to them for prompt service on this.

But very bad in comparison to Apple Music and other Indian services. Apple
Music costs similar for individual account and much cheaper with a family
account, has much better International and Indian collection and really good
playlists collections, at least in India.

~~~
blocked_again
> And most of them using it just to brag that they are listening to music on
> Spotify.

1 million people using Spotify and wasting data pack to brag to their friends?
Seriously?

~~~
mayankkaizen
In India, for approximately 2 USD per month, you get 1.5 GB 4G data per day
and unlimited calls.

These days, data limit is nothing to worry about in India.

~~~
cageface
I was shocked to see how cheap data was there too. You hear a lot of hectoring
about being considerate of users in developing countries and being frugal with
their data when designing apps and websites but at least in India it's not an
issue at all.

~~~
justaguyhere
I concur. Once you get used to mobile data plans in India, you'll realize how
much American consumers are getting screwed by the likes of AT&T. AT&T behaves
as if they are doing a favor to their consumers and that data is like gold, to
be used with extreme respect and care.

BTW, only senders are charged for SMS in India, not receivers, unlike American
carriers.

American Internet and communications service providers need some serious
competition.

~~~
mayankkaizen
That was shocking to know that users are charged for receiving SMS in US!

By the way, In India most plans have some quota for free sms, which almost
always go unused. Anyone who uses whatsapp doesn't even bother about sms.

~~~
tzs
> That was shocking to know that users are charged for receiving SMS in US!

In the US both senders and receivers are charged, generally. Each party pays
their provider for the service of carrying messages from and to them across
that provider's network.

Note that this makes each party responsible for the part of the complete
message transport that they have some control over, and only that part.

So, for example, if you send me a message today, and another message tomorrow,
you will pay the same amount both times even if today I'm at home and tomorrow
I'm traveling to some remote area where message fees are much higher. I'm the
one who pays the higher costs that are incurred due to my travel.

How would this be handled in a place where the sender pays for the whole
thing? How do you find out how much it will cost you to send me a message?

~~~
rescbr
In Brazil, SMSes are paid by the sender at local rates. If you are roaming
internationally you might pay for receiving them, but it has been a long time
since I saw charges for receiving SMSes. Probably the carrier recoups the
interconnection fees when you send a SMS back.

For calls, though, the caller pays local rates, but you will pay your share of
the roaming charges. Some carriers on pre-paid plans charge you a national
long distance fee per call too.

------
sidkhanooja
Personal anecdote, but it's nice to see the growing maturity of the Indian
audience - no one in my circle of friends and family is complaining that big
names such as Linkin Park, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay et al. and rock/metal biggies
(Slipknot/Dream Theater/Pantera et al.) are missing. Growing tastes, perhaps?

And it's amazing to see Spotify grow so quickly. Almost all of the people I
know (I'm guilty of the same) used a US free-tier account, and sideloaded
modded applications to listen to Spotify. I used to think that was piracy as
usual, but now all of us are on 1-year subscriptions. The price sensitivity
($9.99/month in US vs $1.68/month in India) does obviously make a difference.

~~~
Nition
So Spotify in India is missing a lot of the big-name artists? That's a little
sad as I always felt one of the the big benefits of Spotify is they seem to
have EVERYTHING. Video streaming services like Netflix are a joke in
comparison.

~~~
kristianc
> Video streaming services like Netflix are a joke in comparison.

Netflix realised quite rapidly that it was a fools errand to try to have
everything.

Given the choice between paying top dollar for every blockbuster film (which
engage people for two hours at a time), Netflix invested in TV series and
producing its own material, which works out cheaper and keeps people watching
for much much longer. Netflix's movie catalogue has shrunk since 2010 (mostly
due to Epix moving its films over to Hulu), but the TV inventory has tripled.

Netflix also benefits from TV/movies being more fungible, and with a better
long tail than music. If Netflix doesn't have a TV show or movie, you'll
likely find something else you want to watch. If Spotify doesn't have Taylor
Swift, it doesn't have Taylor Swift.

~~~
lukasLansky
"Netflix also benefits from TV/movies being more fungible"

Is this really the case? I mean, is there any research on this? I would guess
exactly opposite is the case: I personally don't care about background music
in most situations, but if I'm watching a film for two hours, I'm going to be
very selective.

That means that Netflix in its current state is useless for me. As much as I
applaud them for some of their production, the combination of half-empty
catalogue and forced subscription model is going in the exactly wrong
direction. I would pay one-time fee for Roma. I would pay subscription for a
good catalogue.

Now, I don't state that it's not the case that most consumers does not care
about what they watch as much as they care about what they listen. I'm just
interested in some empirical data on this.

~~~
KozmoNau7
The way I see it, music is generally something you listen to multiple times,
especially for favorite albums.

On the other hand, people don't re-watch movies and TV shows at nearly the
same frequency. I may be wrong, but that's my observation based on myself and
the people I know.

------
grwthckrmstr
Spotify India user here. At midnight when I found out from my friends that
they launched in India, I switched from my $9.99/mo shared account from some
internet service to Spotify's $1.67/mo within minutes.

Spotify had a pretty neat prepaid option too, where your subscription doesn't
renew until you manually recharge. Was cool of them to add such an India-
specific feature at launch.

~~~
finchisko
It really costs 1.67$ in India?

~~~
dakshmiglani
yes it does, but for the time being a lot of artists are not available there.
so worthless for some people.

~~~
statictype
Apple Music is almost the same cost and has almost everything I want to listen
to.

~~~
lvng
true but apple music's ui and music discovery feature sucks. Ongoing feud
between warner and spotify will be over in coming days as both companies are
loosing out on revenue, so yeah spotify will get better with time in India.
But for local music listeners Gaana is still a better choice imo.

------
mccoure
For someone who listens to a lot of International rock/metal/post-rock etc I
can say most of the names and even some obscure Norwegian/Australian bands are
present. The ppl complaining probably are referring to local
content(Bollywood/Marathi/Hindi/Tamil music). The recommendation engine is
fabulous as always and the podcasts section has a pretty decent collection too

~~~
actuator
No, a lot of big names are missing. I will still use it as discovery is still
miles ahead of any service.

For example they are missing names like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Whitesnake,
Fleetwood Mac etc.

~~~
djhn
In which region? I've had all of these all over my playlists for as long as I
can remember... A decade?

------
somberi
Jio, the largest cell phone service in India, with about 280 million
subscribers, recently acquired another streaming service called Saavn, and it
is available for free for Jio customers (along with their Tivo-like TV
streaming service and their movies).

P.S - I work for Jio.

P.S2 - Apple music also costs the same as spotify in India.

To reply to Zuron's comments: Even assuming Spotify experience is better, it
is a question of pricing. Jio currently offers unlimited calls, text and 1.5GB
of data per day (which includes all you can stream) for about the same price
(USD 2.10 per month for the whole thing whereas Spotify charges USD 1.70 just
for music streaming). I am trying to making a humble point that there are some
incredible values to be obtained at this price point in India today.

@Ing33K - Yes that is me.

~~~
pankajdoharey
Just to be clear folks Jio is run by the shadiest business person in India,
with dubious and often serious malpractices.

~~~
r_singh
The company I work for is going through its worst year because of JIO. It just
feels good to read this here on HN. We know the truth even if the general
public / consumers ignore because of disinterest, media ignores because of
fear, and the Govt. looks away for self interest.

~~~
ShorsHammer
Care to elaborate? Both these comments are just name calling at this point.

Don't know much, but my Indian friends seem to like them. From what I gather
they compete strongly on price (as in free) in an attempt to get into many
other sectors. Once you have a wechat-esque hold on numerous market sectors
making them profitable isn't really that hard, which seems to be their goal.

I certainly don't agree with this type of business model either, but then
again most people I know give strange looks when I rail against FB or Google.

~~~
pankajdoharey
Yeah sure, Jio is owned by a petrochemical giant reliance which was found
guilty of stealing gas from the state owned ONGC wells by justice A.P.Shah
committee [https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/reliance-
industries...](https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/reliance-industries-
guilty-of-taking-ongc-gas-ap-shah-panel/363706/) Two yrs later a new
arbitration panel does not find them guilty
[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-
gas...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-
gas/arbitration-panel-doesnt-find-ril-at-fault-in-ongc-
row/articleshow/65221022.cms)

A clue here Reliance is a big backer of election campaigns for the current
regime.

~~~
lvng
Well this is a very established fact. They are just trying to control aspect
of market from chemicals, lifestyle to digital ecosystem. Idk what would
happen in coming years when there are no competition God save us from havoc.

------
r_singh
This is just positive PR now that Spotify is publicly traded. It's not a
serious indication of their success in this market.

This truly just means that 1 million people in India "downloaded" the app: a
good share who were waiting for it and wanted to pay and a great share that
are using it since it's also offered here for free. Plus there's already
strong competitors with cheaper services and a lot more songs (including Apple
Music).

If Spotify's only USP will be its song discovery, I doubt they'll get a lot of
Indian users to switch just for that.

~~~
Gpetrium
The goal is likely to show that they are managing to penetrate the competitive
Indian market, a valuable market to be in, in the long run.

Whether they are able to remain competitive is another matter.

------
Gigacore
That's not a bad number to start with! I have used Apple Music, Amazon Prime
Music, Google Music, Saavn and Gaana etc. They all differ from one another in
terms of collection. Now I am using Spotify in India -- though at this point
in time it lacks a collection of regional music and playlists, it still has
the better interface and options to use it across different devices compared
to others. I guess once Spotify curates better regional music, it will have an
edge over other services.

~~~
hnzix
I would love some good Bhangra sources. Spotify is good for "Hottest 100"
lists but digging deeper seems hard from within the app, I rely on external
blog playlists like Dummy. I've yet to see a music app nail discovery.

~~~
sanketskasar
For punjabi songs, I feel Apple Music and Saavn are the best. Both have really
good collection and atleast Apple Music has a good curation of playlists as
well. Have been using it for almost a year now.

------
superasn
Amazon prime music also has a very large collection of music + gaana.com
offers yearly memberships for 99rs and Jio has saavn which is free for Jio
users (at least currently) so they are up against some very tough competition
since most of these services are ad free and free.

~~~
manojlds
People are joining Spotify for the "cool" kid factor - they want to
differentiate themselves. Much like buying iPhones in my mind.

~~~
philliphaydon
I buy iPhone because it’s better than android.

~~~
manojlds
I am not talking about the western market. iPhones are extremely costly here
and generally sold unlocked. Buying it is for the status even when people have
to do EMIs.

~~~
philliphaydon
I'm not talking about the western market either. I'm saying "people buying
spotify for the cool kid factor" is false.

------
GuillaumeBrdet
That's some pretty amazing numbers for one week! I wonder how it affected
Apple Music with cancellations.

It is interesting that Spotify is $1.68 in India.

~~~
KorematsuFred
Apple users in India are negligible. There are just 10M iphones in India
compared to 300M android users. Of course that number is just 1/3rd of
Canada's 30M iphone users.

~~~
skrebbel
30M iPhone users on a 36M population? I strongly doubt that.

~~~
anoncake
Maybe 30M Iphone sales in Canada?

~~~
bpye
I have no idea how reliable statista [1] is, but they seem to agree. It seems
kinda insane though so I'm hesistant to believe it...

[1] - [https://www.statista.com/statistics/274772/forecast-of-
mobil...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/274772/forecast-of-mobile-phone-
users-in-canada/)

~~~
OJFord
That's phone users, not Apple iPhone specifically.

~~~
bpye
You are totally right. My bad - searched for iPhone, clicked and was too tired
to check properly.

------
coldtea
And the news is?

In a country with 1.4+ billion people, you just put up ads for the new
service, make sign up and basic functionality free, and even a "urinate on
your carpet" service could get 1M uniques on a few days...

~~~
ptd
I’m not too familiar with this hypothesis, do you have any sources I can refer
to?

Thanks

~~~
coldtea
Sorry, I don't ascribe to the theory that people shouldn't use their
observations of industry/society/media/etc and brains to make deductions
unless there's a ready-made paper and some stats they can quote.

I came with this hypothesis on my own, without referencing some media industry
analyst...

------
anildigital
Most of them talking about price and free tier. But I think good apps and good
service is what can attract more listeners to Spotify. Their app is world
class and a good competition to Apple Music. They have huge collection of
curated playlists and new generation surely loves listening international
albums and not just local music. I think they are going to grow faster and
become a good competition to JioSaavn, Gaana, Wynk. There is a high chance
some of them are going to shut down soon.

------
kumarharsh
That's one way to stop piracy: go to the market. (:

~~~
nolok
Still doesn't solve Spotify's core long term issue : if they make lots of
money, right holders know exactly how hard they can negotiate for better fees.
Netflix fights that with their own content now, but Spotify doesn't seem to be
interested to go that way (and I'm not sure they could anyway).

So they're pretty much trapped into being a barely profitable company that's
also milking money to the content owner.

~~~
xxpor
Ben Thompson's been talking about this a lot recently. The tldr is this is a
big reason why Spotifys been making a big push into podcasts, because its hard
to impossible for them to make money because of how the value chain works I
music.

~~~
draugadrotten
Ben Thompson on Spotify: [https://stratechery.com/2018/lessons-from-
spotify/](https://stratechery.com/2018/lessons-from-spotify/)

He does list as one possiblity that Spotify will one day cut out the labels
from the value chain. I personally think it is inevitable; the labels used to
source, market and distribute music, and there is nothing (except the
"admission cost") that I can see will prevent a distributor such as Spotify to
become a label. Spotify has a strong brand name which can be leveraged as a
strong asset for "great music" if they do it right, whatever that means. Can't
see them put other labels out of business though. Their blue ocean can be to
completely ignore physical and go fully virtual, perhaps even as far as
offering immersive 3D concerts online, with artists that never appear in
person - or perhaps in the future with virtual artists that never even existed
irl.

There is also nothing inherently wrong in just being a distributor. Sometimes
harvesting a stable profit over decades is better than growing like cancer and
then crashing because you're yesterday's news. However the record labels are a
threat against the stability and hence it is most likely that Spotify will
push to become independent, just like Netflix.

~~~
caractacus
> there is nothing (except the "admission cost") that I can see will prevent a
> distributor such as Spotify to become a label.

1\. The record companies won't be happy with Spotify encroaching on their turf
and will take their music away (see: Netflix).

2\. There's far more to record label activities than releasing music.
Production, promotion, marketing, distribution. How do you make a name for
yourself in the modern music landscape when anyone can upload their music onto
Spotify? Name a popular artist that doesn't have a large record company behind
them, besides Chance.

------
josteink
That’s clearly 1 million which was _waiting_ for this.

Let’s see how the numbers change from now on. That will be a lot more
interesting.

~~~
r_singh
I have Spotify India on my phone, so I guess I'm a part of the 1 million that
was waiting for this.

I was about to pay for it even thought it's offered as a free service as well.
However, once I gave it a go, I realised the collection available in India is
quite disappointing and this is clearly not what the 1 million were waiting
for. PS - I'm not really using Spotify, even though I'm counted as a user.

------
dakshmiglani
Honestly, I'll rather pay $15/mo for the US version of spotify then get the
Indian version. Most of the songs, I listen to are not available in Indian
Version. songs from artists like green day, linkin park, coldplay, etc.

------
HHalvi
I used Spotify at first via VPN and then went for a premium account and it's
been around 3 years since then. I know a lot of other folks that did the same
(using it via VPN, not really the premium part) and most of them ended up
switching the country tab from US to India the day Spotify quietly launched
here. Don't have any evidence to back up my claim but I think a large majority
of the first 1 million unique listeners are made up of these folks.And also
they(myself included) have evangelized Spotify to their friends/family/twitter
followers

------
blackoil
India has free song service from Jio(Saavn) and Airtel, 2 largest mobile
service provider. Few independent players like Gaana which are half the price
of Spotify and Amazon Prime music which is at same price as Spotify but comes
bundled with Prime Video and Shopping benefits. So uphill battle for Spotify.

------
zuron7
I wonder how many of those listeners were already using spotify through
cracked APK's.

~~~
Gigacore
Even with cracked APK, there was no option to set the region to India. With
that, the stats for US must have gone down a bit after users switched their
region to India.

------
meethkr
Entire Pantera discography, Pearl Jam discography and many older songs are
missing.

It's good for recommendations but the collection isn't great. I'll stick with
the much cheaper prime, 15 USD Per year gives you video, faster delivery and
music.

~~~
7171u
May be because of this: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241345/spotify-
india-la...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241345/spotify-india-launch-
warner-music-legal-battle)

------
almost_usual
This feels like a small number considering 1.3+ billion people live in India.

~~~
swimfar
Almost 0.1% of an entire country's population in a week is a small number?

~~~
almost_usual
Rounding up from 0.075% to 0.1% feels a little generous

------
iamgopal
Glad to see this, I think all US based internet companies, ( not only the
giant ones but small ones too ) should grab the Indian market which, because
if Jio, growing at many folds. Couple of years back, It was not possible to
watch movie online, and now, each individual in my family has 3 GB / Day data
plan, so much to the point where we hardly turn on the tv. same can also be
possible to infrastructure and industrial / corporate products. I can see in
couple of years all major Enterprise software running in cloud for majority of
Indian industry.

~~~
ptr
Why US based? Spotify is Swedish.

------
notadoc
Spotify is the best streaming music service, nothing else comes close to
competing.

Pandora is still decent for discovery.

------
Chico11Kidlet
What's the reason for that?

------
tarasmatsyk
Sounds good, as Youtube music is coming for the market. Go Spotify!

PS. Still miss you in Ukraine

------
pragmaticlurker
I'd like to be also a user for 1.60$/Month instead of 9.99€

~~~
ascii_only
Make Spotify family account and share it with friends or use VPN and make
Premium Philippines account.

~~~
pragmaticlurker
do you care about your password? I do

~~~
dhruvrrp
Sharing a family account doesn’t mean you give your password away.

The way it works is one person pays and that person can add 5 other accounts
to his ‘family’ to give them access to premium.

~~~
pragmaticlurker
I didn't know about that kind of account

------
openloop
I like the social in Spotify better than iTunes a lil

------
alayek
In India, Spotify Premium is 119 INR / month, while Apple Music is 120 INR /
month. Spotify also have few other options, like annual membership, and
student plans.

While recommendation is off the charts, the collection simply isn't there.
Mostly due to licensing issues, I assume.

For instance, really loved the tracks from Suits, and got my own playlist on
YouTube too, consisting off some nice tracks compiled from tunefinder.

But the Spotify track list is only a subset, and not all those tracks are
available.

Am on iOS, so no Google Pay Music on phone, and for me Apple Music is no worse
than Spotify, except when it comes to search.

~~~
krtkush
> Am on iOS, so no Google Pay Music on phone

What does that mean? Google Play Music works fine on iOS.

~~~
josteink
And so does YouTube music.

