Millennials are not the only ones hooked to Spotify in India
2 min read . Updated: 27 Feb 2020, 12:48 PM IST
Premium- India ranks highest in the number of 18-24 year old users on Spotify among all its markets
- With the top music genres ranging from pop, film music to hip-hop, sufi and Indian folk, what unites Indian listeners is still their love for ‘love’ as a mood for music.
NEW DELHI : Swedish audio streaming service Spotify may have entered India lured by its young Internet savvy base but has realized within one year of operations that music knows no boundaries of age. While GenZ and millennials drive the most streams on popular music genres like film music, international pop, and Punjabi non-film music on Spotify, it’s the 35-44 year-old users who listen the most to local music, the company said in a statement.
Gen Z refers to those born between 1995 and 2002 while millennials are those born between 1983 and 1994. Within the 55 plus age group on Spotify in India, Señorita by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello is the most streamed track across the country. Other favourites for the age group on the service include South Korean boy band EXO, particularly among women in Telangana and south Korean girl group BLACKPINK’s track Kill This Love in West Bengal. Meanwhile, men in Telangana streamed Lose You To Love Me by Selena Gomez, while their counterparts in Punjab were avid listeners of RnB artist Eli Sostre, apart from Bollywood and Punjabi music.
With the top music genres ranging from pop, film music to hip-hop, sufi and Indian folk, what unites Indian listeners is still their love for ‘love’ as a mood for music. In states like West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar, and Sikkim, Bollywood Mush features in the top three playlists while in Gujarat too, users listen to sentimental love songs.
There are some clear language preferences on Spotify. In Goa, for example, across age groups, Spotify users only listen to international music. In the north east, Korean music features in the top three languages of consumption but an unexpected love for K-pop has also emerged in Ahmedabad and Jaipur which feature in the top 10 cities that consume the genre on Spotify in India. In Gujarat, the 25-55 plus age group only consumes Bollywood Hindi music. And when it comes to local language songs, these feature in the top streamed tracks for all male listeners in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Telangana.
The Swedish streaming service that has completed a year of operations in India said that the country ranks highest in the number of 18-24 year old users on Spotify among all its markets. Since launch, Spotify has been streamed in nearly 2,400 cities in the country. The service has more than doubled its music library of local, curated playlists in India; from 120 at the time of launch, to 350 plus today.
Its most streamed artistes include Bollywood names like Arijit Singh, Tanishk Bagchi, Neha Kakkar, Badshah and Shreya Ghoshal.
In a recent report by research firm Kantar, Spotify ranked fourth in terms of market share behind Gaana, JioSaavn and Wynk. According to the report, Mumbai and Delhi are the largest markets for music streaming.
