Heena Sharma Blog

YouTube has signed up more than 800,000 subscribers for its paid services in India since debuting in March, according to people familiar with the matter, vaulting it past competitors in one of the world’s fastest-growing media markets. The services are growing faster than rival paid music offerings in India, including Spotify and local players Gaana and JioSaavn, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the subscriber data hasn’t been released. The one paid service that could have more users than YouTube is Apple Music, which has been tight-lipped about its subscriber figures. YouTube has long struggled to to gets users to pay for its services, especially since the company’s main website is synonymous with free videos. But the Google division has started to gain traction, and the numbers out of India suggest it’s having particular success in the world’s second-most-populous country. YouTube sells two paid services in India: YouTube Music Premium an...

Music streaming platform Saavn, now a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), on Tuesday launched JioSaavn , which according to the company is South Asia’s largest streaming, entertainment and artist platform. JioSaavn represents the official integration of JioMusic and Saavn , and the new JioSaavn app will be available across app stores like Jio app store, JioPhone, and www.jio.com/jiosaavn. RIL had in March this year acquired Saavn and announced at the time that the implied valuation of the combined entity, at over $1 billion, made it the most valuable music streaming platform in South Asia, and among the most popular in the world. Telecom and data company Reliance Jio Infocomm is part of the RIL group and is India’s largest digital services network with over 252 million subscribers. The integrated music app has a massive addressable market opportunity both in India as well as for the Indian diaspora, according to the company. Read More Business Stand...