Amarjit Singh Batra refers to himself as a “big-time bathroom singer”. The general manager for South Asia, Middle East and Africa and managing director at the music streaming service Spotify India never trained as a singer as a child but had a naturally gifted voice, which meant he was always asked to sing at weddings and family gatherings. “Now I’m in the (music) industry and dealing with professional singers so I just keep quiet,” chuckles the 58-year-old. “I don’t consider myself a good singer, just somebody who can sing a little bit. But I grew up with a lot of passion for music and used to be a huge fan of Mohammed Rafi.”
The chic Spotify office in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) area, where the bright lighting changes colour as you walk through the corridor, stands in contrast to Batra’s calm and understated demeanour. He smiles often, laughs easily and checks frequently if he should continue speaking.
Music along with sports and travel was one of the three defining features of Batra’s early life, who was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, and grew up in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi, among other places thanks to his army officer father moving cities. After graduating in industrial engineering from Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College in Ludhiana, Batra opted for an MBA from UBS (University Business School), Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Following this, he spent a few years in startups and international trading before moving to online marketplace Baazee India Pvt. Ltd as associate director in 2003. Once the American multinational e-commerce company eBay acquired Baazee in 2004, Batra spent the next five years in a host of roles, including head of cross-border trade and lifestyle categories, project lead for rural marketplace, head of ad sales and strategic partnerships, and head of new business and global trade. What he refers to as lessons in consumer interaction and connection followed at Dutch online marketplace OLX, which he joined in 2008 as chief executive officer, India and later, South Asia, only to be onboarded by Spotify when the Swedish audio streaming service was looking to make its foray into India in 2018.
“I didn’t plan the Spotify move. But I did feel that I wanted to go deeper into this country and build something more connected with customers and culture. I wasn’t thinking about Spotify, but I was thinking content that time. And I think it was a marriage made in heaven,” Batra says.
The interesting thing, he adds, is that he was already using a lot of global Spotify references for product and team building at OLX (for instance, Spotify’s scaling framework organised around autonomous, cross-functional teams called squads that own specific product features). But there was a bigger push; his kids, then teenagers, thought it was the ultimate cool job. “Spotify was not live in India but I love zero to one stories. I really enjoy building from scratch like a founder,” Batra adds.
There were challenges. The Indian market was traditionally prone to music piracy and unfamiliar with the idea of paying for audio content, and while it had started showing spurts of growth in the audio streaming category, it was far from established. That, however, Batra says, gave them an opportunity to identify gaps and see what had worked and what hadn’t.
“By the time we entered, we were not the first player in the category (there was Gaana, Saavn, which is now JioSaavn, and others) and in fact, it was a very cluttered market. But luckily for us, there was a huge opportunity because the job hadn’t really been done and we got a chance to think from scratch and craft a story despite being late movers,” Batra says.
The opportunities, too, were many. First, while there were alternatives available, no product offered the kind of personalisation of algorithms that Spotify did. Secondly, the service was renowned for playlists that users could curate and that the service put together playlists based on listening habits and patterns. Third, despite India’s multi-lingual diversity, other audio-streaming services were focusing on only a few languages and there was no real penetration in several regions like Bhojpuri or Haryanvi. Fourth, India was all about film music and there was hardly a push on the independent artist front.
“I crafted a strategy that we would focus on four or five languages to start off with and then build more. We then introduced playlists, some of which are flagship initiatives today, be it Indian hip-hop playlist RAP 91 or Punjabi 101. Plus, we realised we need to open up the artist pipeline and double down on the creator ecosystem,” Batra says. The company realised it needed to put musicians at the front and centre of content, unlike the Bollywood model where singers were only seen as voices of actors. While film music does clock maximum listens on all streaming listens, independent music is growing fast—from over 90% dependence on film music, the figure has now come down to 60-70%. In 2025, five of the top 10 most streamed songs on Spotify in India were non-film. Artists like A.P. Dhillon, King, Anuv Jain and Kanishk Seth have emerged as fan-favourites in the non-film category.
Among other initiatives, the company has invested in the mobile app Spotify for Artists, a platform that shares data with artists on their fanbase and to help build business. Spotify also regularly organises live events and other brand partnerships for these artists.
Batra, who keeps a close track of global markets and also oversees regions like Africa, says there is a need to tap into Indian music as a means of soft power. “We have been leveraging this expertise because we have teams out there (globally) who can promote Indian artists outside the country. We do it in multiple ways, via editorial integrations where we push our global editors to see if they can put Indian artists on user playlists internationally. We also work with marketing teams and have regular billboards in places like Times Square (in New York) and London to put Indian artists on the map,” he says, adding that success stories like rapper and singer Hanumankind are testament to how the local music story is going global.
That said, Batra adds that film music still retains some amount of dominance and there is an opportunity for people to wake up to more genres and languages.
Paid subscriber numbers may be growing but the country is only learning to pay for music. According to a FICCI EY report, music streaming reached an audience of approximately 178 million who heard 5.8 trillion streams during 2025, a 15% growth over 2024. Of the above, the paid subscriber base grew to reach 14 million, which is a 37% growth over 2024, on the back of significant efforts by the music platforms to disincentivise free music consumption.
In FY25, Spotify India reported a net profit of ₹74.62 crore on revenue from operations of ₹513.77 crore. Total revenue grew by nearly 60% compared to FY24, fuelled by an 89% surge in subscription revenue ( ₹316.83 crore) and a 38% rise in advertising income ( ₹186.73 crore). While Spotify continues to be more expensive than other options, it offers student and family discounts to cater to the price-sensitive market. In November 2025, it introduced a three-tiered subscription plan to cater to different segments.
“A lot of people in this country have grown up on film music. The discovery of new music is not a natural thing for many. It’s like having and loving home food. Till you discover food delivery apps and your life changes forever. But in general, the interesting challenge here is that the discovery of music is not an in-built habit,” Batra says.
His roles across different companies and categories have taught Batra some common lessons, he says. One that India is a very large market and in order for any product to reach the masses, large-scale marketing is required. “The second piece is that as Indians, we have a lot of similar tastes but we are also deeply culturally rooted in our own ways. So thinking one strategy or communication will work for the whole country, or worse, thinking something done globally can just be replicated, is not the best idea. Finally, you can build a brand but if you don’t have a great product that can deliver on the brand promise, it’s not going to be a smooth journey,” he says.
Describing himself as someone who likes to develop leaders, Batra says when companies like theirs operate in very large markets with lean teams, there is a need for instant leadership within individuals. “My big philosophy is that we need to always work as a team. There is no individual brilliance. Also, big things can only be achieved by experimentation where you learn and fail and so on. So the licence to fail is always given to people and backing them in tough situations is what I do. Wherever I work, people should feel this is the best job for them,” he says. That said, he’s also ready to get his hands dirty in execution. “If there are challenges and we know that nobody has answers, I roll up my sleeves and get down to work,” he adds.
Batra, who loves reading non-fiction in his spare time, sheepishly admits he has a huge stack of books bought but waiting on his bookshelf to be picked up. “I grew up without my father who passed away when I was 18. So I’ve had no mentors and no one to guide me. While I’ve struggled a lot, I realised there are so many people out there writing good stuff and I started picking those up. And the more books I picked up, I felt these could act as good mentors,” he says. “I learnt tennis and every shot that I know, I picked up from a book. I’ve never had a coach in my life so I learned to self-coach and now whenever I get time, I try to mentor people because I know how important it is. I got a lot of mentors later in life but even today, if I have a problem, I know if I even serendipitously pick up a book, I’ll find an answer.”