Business News Deals Digital

Indian streaming service Saavn becomes JioSaavn

By | Published on Thursday 6 December 2018

Digital Music

Indian streaming platform Saavn has formally merged with rival JioMusic, the music service of Indian telco Jio. The move had been expected ever since the owner of the latter – Reliance Industries – acquired a majority stake in Saavn back in March.

The combined operation will be known as JioSaavn and will offer the usual freemium and premium options, with customers of Jio’s mobile services being offered a free 90 day trial of the premium set-up. The original podcasts and programming that was previously part of Saavn will also continue under the new brand.

Confirming all this, Saavn co-founder Rishi Malhotra said: “Since announcing our merger in March 2018, the Jio and Saavn teams have been working to integrate and reimagine a combined platform in JioSaavn. Today, we have one of the most personalised and capable media platforms in the world, an unmatched content catalogue, regionalised editorial and original programming and music that’s redefining how artists and creators connect directly with audiences worldwide”.

There has been increased attention of late on the rapidly growing Indian streaming market. Saavn has probably enjoyed the highest profile of the locally-based services. Though also of note is Gaana.com, owned by Indian media giant the Times Group, which also secured investment earlier this year from China’s Tencent, operator of the market-leading Chinese streaming music platform QQ Music.

Meanwhile, the global streaming services are also competing for a slice of the Indian market, with Apple and Amazon already operational there, and Spotify’s launch in India being much anticipated (and, of course, the possible licensing challenges that are delaying that launch much gossiped about).



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