Product adoption lifecycle for music streaming services in India
Winced out of daily commutes, music has now emerged as the preferred stress-buster for the millions who are working from home, playing a therapeutic role for these multi-tasking times. Both the number of subscribers of audio streaming services and the time they spend listening have grown nearly 40% in 2020 across platforms, said Blaise Fernandes, president and chief executive officer of Indian Music Industry, the apex body of music companies and record labels.
India’s audio streaming market is dominated by Gaana, the streaming service owned by Times Internet Ltd, with a 30% share, followed by JioSaavn (24%), Wynk Music (15%), Spotify (15%), Google Play Music (10%), and others (7%), according to a study by Kantar and audience measurement and analytics company VTION this January.
Product Adoption Life Cycle
The product adoption curve is a visual representation of the way different groups of people have a willingness to try out your product over time.
The process of adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classical normal distribution or “bell curve”. The model indicates that the first group of people to use a new product is called “innovators”, followed by “early adopters”. Next come the early majority and late majority, and the last group to eventually adopt a product are called “Laggards” or “phobics.”
Let’s look at how we can define different user groups for music streaming services in India.
Innovators
Innovators are people who are keen on using any new product and are the first ones to try their hands on it. They are risk takers, love new technologies and are influencers for various people associated with them. These are the people who might pre-book or pre-order products before its launch. They form around 2.5% of the total product users.
Considering music streaming services in India, Innovators include young millennials or students who are updated with the latest happenings in fields of technology and innovation, critics and journalists who use every new product to give reviews or feedback on a regular basis.
Early adopters
Early adopters are also very keen on adopting a new product, as soon as it is launched. This group of users would consciously and positively approach a product and help provide constructive feedback on it.They constitute about 13.5% of the total market share.
For music streaming services, Early adopters could be students who are keen to try new products, young working professionals who are tech enthusiasts and open to experimenting and influencers who try different products and review or critique them.
Early majority
This group of users will be open to new options given there are other people using it. These set of users will start adopting products from the review or feedback of innovators or early adopters. They constitute about 34% of the market share and are easily the first sizeable market.
For music streaming services, Early majority of users will be those who are influenced by early adopter influencers, people who care about their status and discover the product through word of mouth or social media or advertisements and someone looking for alternatives of the product they are using.
Late majority
These are the people who were mostly skeptical in the beginning about the utility of the product and would use the product only if it is really required. They form 34% of the total product user base. They might have predefined sets of expectations from the product and not open to experimentation.
For music streaming services, Late majority of users include people who are already using some alternative and don’t feel the necessity to change, people living in tier 2–3 cities of India and senior people trying to get their hands on current technologies.
Laggards
These individuals are the last one to adopt the innovation and form 16% market share. This segment mainly comprises senior people who have low socioeconomic status. These are the set of people who are technologically challenged and used to traditional ways.
For music streaming services, Laggards includes users who might not have choice but to use the product as traditional ways are no longer efficient or valid, people living in tier 3 cities of India, people living in areas with no or very poor internet penetration.
Factors and challenges affecting the rate of music streaming service adoption
Piracy
It’s one of the biggest challenges. People can listen to pirated music for free which becomes a hurdle for music streaming platform adoption.
Internet connectivity
Thanks to Jio for pushing internet usage in India. But there are still issues with speed in some regions and some areas are yet to have access to the internet.
Free and Premium plans
There are some content or features available for free in many music streaming services. Some of them have advertisements in free plans. Many users compromise on the features or okay with advertisements in free plans so they don’t buy premium.
Price
Many users find premium plans costly or not worthy for the perks offered in premium plans.
Competition
There are many players in music streaming services in India. Users have many options to choose from or switch to.
Offers and discounts
Many streaming services are tying up with other platforms like e-commerce, telecom etc and offering services at discounted rates. So many users are likely to choose the same service instead of paying to other services exclusively.
Growth and product adoption comparison
Let’s have a look at the market share of different music streaming services in India.
Music Streaming Apps Leaders & Losers — Key Statistics
- Highest Market Share of Music Streaming App in India: JioSaavn
- Lowest Market Share of Music Streaming App in India: Amazon Music
- Highest Time Spent on a Music App: Spotify = Avg. 97 minutes per visitor.
- Lowest Time Spent on a Music App: Google Play Music = Avg. 6 Minutes per visitor.
Let’s look at different players in detail.
Gaana
Gaana is the market leader in music streaming in India with around 185million monthly active users. It was founded in 2011 and headquartered in New Delhi. It has 100M+ downloads in playstore with 4.2 star rating and ranked #3 in playstore apps for music and audio. It has a really good collection of regional music. Gaana has over 45 million MP3 songs. Gaana Plus is available at INR 99 per month. Gaana introduced Video stories on its platform showcasing the artists and influencers and enabling users to see short-video content. It has also focused on expanding its library with original podcasts and shows.
JioSaavn
JioSaavn is the second-largest music streaming service in India with a market share of almost 24%. It was founded in 2007 and merged with Telecom giant Reliance Jio in 2018. It has 100M+ downloads in playstore with 3.8 star rating and ranked #2 in playstore apps for music and audio. It has a really good collection of Hindi, English, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu music. It offers more than 40 million tracks in 15 languages for 38 million active users. JioSaavn Pro starts at INR 99 per month and has different family plans as well. It is collaborating with different platforms to attract new customers like Jio sim user gets 1 month of JioSaavn Pro free with the sim card. It also has originals, podcasts, and exclusive video content, along with features such as dark mode, offline support, and local playback.
Wynk
Wynk is the third largest player of music streaming services in India with a market share of almost 15%. It is one of the subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel. It has 100M+ downloads in playstore with 4.3 star rating and ranked #1 in playstore apps for music and audio. It has a really good collection of Bollywood and regional music. It offers more than 10 million tracks. Wynk offers premium services to Airtel users at INR 29 per month and for others at INR 99 per month. As mentioned, One of the strategies of wynk is to offer premium services at discounted rates with Airtel and other platforms/services. It also started offering different types of contents like podcasts, LIVE streaming of music concerts to stay in competition.
Spotify
Spotify has 15% market share but It is one of the best music streaming services in India. Spotify is one of the top players in the global market and entered Indian market in February 2019. It has 500M+ downloads in playstore with 4.5 star rating and ranked #4 in playstore apps for music and audio. It offers more than 50 million songs and also has a wide collection of podcasts. Its strengths are recommendations and audio quality. It has an ad-supported free plan for songs while allowing users to listen and download podcasts without ads. Spotify has many different plans starting with INR 119 per month for individuals. It also offers student, duo and family packs. For Indian markets they also started offering weekly or daily plans starting just at INR 13 per day. Spotify does brilliant billboards and other advertisements to attract new customers. They also signed deals with Flipkart and other platforms to expand their reach.
YouTube Music
YouTube music is a very new player in Indian market. It has 500M+ downloads in playstore with 4.1 star rating. It offers Google Play Music’s over 35 million song collection and many more. It’s plus point is the reach and power of YouTube. It offers premium services at INR 99 per month. You can search for and play live performances, remixes, covers, and other beautiful renditions of any song that you like.
Amazon Prime Music
Amazon Music was launched in Indian in 2018. It has a collection of over 50 million songs. It is bundled with Amazon Prime which costs Rs 999/year, or on a monthly basis of Rs 129. It has crossed almost 10 Mn users in India.
These key players in the Indian market are dominating the music streaming services. All of them are coming up with different strategies to gain market share and stay in competition. Music streaming in India is growing day by day and there are a lot of opportunities for these players to grow with it.
References:
- https://www.livemint.com/news/india/audio-streaming-grows-40-in-india-in-2020-11608022882735.html
- https://marketinglessons.in/market-share-of-music-streaming-apps-in-india/
- https://beebom.com/best-music-streaming-service-india/
- https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/product-adoption-lifecycle-of-music-streaming-services-in-india-a-case-study-705918564ba2
- https://en.wikipedia.org
I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions in the comments :-)
