Music Streaming Market To Reach Around 600 mn users in 3 years: Prashan Agarwal, Gaana

Prashan Agarwal, CEO, Gaana, shares insights on the disruptions of the music industry, the key trends for 2020 and the growth of Gaana as a music streaming app

The past year was a revolutionary one in terms of music and listening behaviours. After a massive low during the 2000s, the recorded music industry has been regaining colours for the last decade. We spoke to Prashan Agarwal, CEO, Gaana, to understand the disruptions of the music industry. In a chat with exchange4media, Agarwal discussed how the music industry just got smarter with disruptions in OTT streaming. He also spoke about the key trends for 2020. Further, he also spoke about the growth of Gaana as a music streaming app. With 60% market shares of the music industry, Gaana has become a household brand over the years with the famous jingle ‘Bas Bajna Chahiye Gaana’.

Disruptions in the music industry

The country’s music streaming space has evolved significantly in terms of content consumption and tech innovation, said Agarwal. Talking about content consumption in the industry, he said regional music now contributes to 35% of the overall consumption on Gaana, led by Punjabi music at 15%. On the tech front, the most remarkable innovation is in widespread Voice Search adoption and cutting-edge techs like AI and Machine Learning that now help us offer a more personalised music experience.

Market Leadership

Agarwal told that Gaana was launched in April 2010 and has steadily gained momentum to build market leadership over the last 9 years. He revealed that today it has more than 150 million Monthly Active Users. “Over the last 2 years, cutting edge innovation on the products concerning music recommendation, tweaking the app experience to suit millennials, as well as a semi-urban population who may be first-time users along with a curated content library, has helped us gain traction rapidly,” he elucidated.

Regional share

The biggest trend in the Indian OTT audio streaming has been the rise of regional music’s share in the music consumption habits of most Indians, with Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam ruling the charts, divulged Agarwal. Regional music consumption on Gaana has registered more than 25X growth in the last 2.5 years. A deep understanding of the Indian music lover’s regional music tastes is key to securing a considerable market share in our country’s audio OTT market, said Agarwal.

Key Trends of 2020

According to Agarwal, the next big disruption in the audio OTT sector in 2020 would be advancements in emerging tech and AI that would enable music streaming apps like Gaana the opportunity to offer hands-free, screen-free experiences that add real value to a music lover's life. These triggers along with the host of first-generation mobile internet users set to come onboard the music-streaming bandwagon to enjoy their favourite music in the language of their choice. This will create a burgeoning market for advertisers and investors. The other trend will be the rise of podcast consumption, Agarwal added.

Rapid Growth of Gaana

Agarwal also revealed that Gaana, with its successful campaigns like ‘World Music For Gaana’, owns 60% market shares in India. Gaana's industry-leading music library features 45 million songs across 30 Indic languages. However, the paid subscription is a single-digit percentage of their overall user-base, but it has grown by more than 3X since last year. “We believe the market will grow to around 500 million to 600 million users in the next 3 years,” he concluded.