Amazon Prime Music Joins The Indian Music Streaming Club!

With the growing streaming market in India, it is about time for Multinational giants Amazon is finally ready to bring Amazon Prime Music here.

In India, the digital music industry—downloads and streams—is estimated to be generating more than 70% of the $191.2 Mn (INR 12.2 Bn) music industry’s overall revenue, according to the 2017 “Indian Media And Entertainment Industry Report” by KPMG India and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). It further mentions the number of monthly active users in India for music streaming services at 60 Mn. Seeing this, multinational retail giant Amazon is all set to release their music streaming product Amazon Prime music in India in the coming weeks. The company has claimed to have tie-ups with Indian popular labels Saregama, Zee Music, TIPs Music, Sony Music, and the latest addition being Venus Music. In India, Amazon Prime Music will compete with music streaming services like Times Internet’s Gaana, Saavn, Hungama, Reliance Jio’s Music, Airtel’s Wynk, Google’s Play Music etc.

Tie up with Zee Music and Saregama

From Amazon's research, vintage music till date remains extremely popular in India. Saregama is one of India’s oldest labels with 117,000 tracks spread over 15,000 albums and various Indian languages. Saregama’s catalog features most of the classics of Indian cinema, including “Guide,” “Waqt,” “Don,” and “Kati Patang.” While classic Bollywood has a predominant place in the hearts of the Indian music lover, the country also loves it current day Bollywood. The deal with Zee helps Amazon Prime Music cater to the needs to these followers. Film music is the core of the Indian music industry. The Zee deal covers some 450 film soundtracks — including “Dangal,” “Raees,” “Sairat,” and “Udta Punjab” and upcoming releases “Padman,” “Student of the Year 2,” “Aiyaary,” “Drive,” and “Gold” — and albums from 250 musicians. This entire catalog will be available to the users of Amazon Prime without additional charge and without commercials when the music service is added to the company’s Indian bundle.

At launch, Amazon Prime Music listeners will enjoy hundreds of especially hand-curated playlists across their favorite eras, genres, and artists, said Sahas Malhotra, director Amazon Music, India.

Amazon Prime Indian story

After launching Prime membership programme in India in July 2016, the global e-commerce giant has introduced a number of add-on benefits with the Prime subscription. In December 2016, Amazon introduced Prime Video service in India which provides its customers exclusive access to movies. Amazon also influenced by Netflix started their Amazon’s original series along with premium content beyond borders. Amazon Prime now encompasses over 11Million Prime-eligible products across categories in India this year, compared to the 2 Million products it offered in 2016. With Amazon Prime Music service in line, Amazon also introduced its video streaming device, Amazon Fire TV Stick, in April 2017 against rival Google Chromecast. In October 2016, Amazon’s AI enabled virtual assistant Alexa-powered wireless voice-controlled speaker, Echo, entered the Indian market for select customers. The other awaited products from Amazon India are its audiobook and entertainment service, Audible.

India Showed A Growth Of more than double in its business in India in FY17, with over 105% growth in revenues.

"India continues to be a good story for us. We feel that it's had a lot of growth in the past year. In fact, more Prime members joined India's Prime programme in the first year than we've seen in any other country in the history of the world, our world," Amazon Senior VP and CFO Brian Olsavsky said in an investor call. Read More On Economic Times.

Source: Variety The Global Music Industry is closely looking at Indian Music MARKET! It's a great great upward road for us!