- The overall Indian music streaming market is estimated to be 150-160 million.
- Gaana Video is the app’s exclusive vertical video format built for mobile.
- Artist Dashboard is just a self-service dashboard for artists to access insights and analytics
With Reliance Jio bringing down the internet data rates and the growth of India’s smartphone users — the online services have seen a significant rise in their user base. Especially, OTT (over the top) platforms have been able to garner huge traction out of these trends.
The 100-million mark is a very significant milestone, considering the user base in the overall Indian music streaming market which is estimated to be 150-160 million, Gaana chief executive Prashan Agarwal said. Through newly launched features like video, the brand plans to ramp up engagement rates going forward, he added.
On Wednesday, the app unveiled two key features — Gaana Video and an Artist Dashboard. Gaana Video is the app’s exclusive vertical video format, built for mobile, and has been created in partnerships with India’s top artists. Artist Dashboard is just a self-service dashboard for artists to access insights and analytics around how their fans are consuming their music content on the app.
The company drew attention to the fact that a recent report by Deloitte suggested that there are 150 million music-streaming users in India, so two-thirds of them are using Gaana – although not necessarily exclusively. It also represents sharp growth over the past 14 months: when Gaana raised a $115m funding round in February 2018, its official MAU count was 60 million.
Understanding the needs of the Indian users could be key for Gaana in the fight against international players Spotify and YouTube Music. With the growing competition in the music streaming space, many OTT platforms have launched original and exclusive content such as podcasts, exclusive songs and more, keeping in mind the Indian audience.
Gaana says it has a team that vets independent artists and connects them with record labels for the album or song launches. Gaana leverages its distribution and marketing to make sure the song reaches its users through app notifications, showcase, and other in-app promotions.
“Through our app, artists get access to 10 Mn daily users. While if the song was launched through alternative channels, artists could have access to only 1% of this number. The major earning points for singers are concerts and that is largely based on their popularity. Gaana helps the artists to get that user base.” Agarwal added.
Over the past year, Gaana said, it drove several industry-first product innovations including an AI-led ‘For You’ screen that offers personalized song recommendations and is used by over 10% of Indian Gaana users, it said. Another is a voice assistant which enables easy, multilingual search and is used by more than 24% of the app’s users.
Let’s see if it is able to justify its tagline “India’s favorite music app” in the video field too!
“Bas bajna chahiye gaana!”
