Audio platforms bet on freemium models, new plans to lure users
Audio streaming platforms in India are witnessing a significant increase in paid subscriptions as they implement restrictions on their free services and introduce new pricing strategies.
With an active user base of approximately 185 million, audio streaming platforms saw their paid subscriber base grow to 7.5 million in 2023 from 4-5 million in 2022, according to Ficci-EY media and entertainment report.
While platforms such as Spotify have implemented listening restrictions, like not
listeners to repeat tracks or go back to previous songs, other companies have introduced family and duo pricing packages.
One of the biggest challenges for audio streaming platforms is the widespread availability of free music on platforms like YouTube. However, for a sustainable music economy, streaming platforms must turn paid, said industry experts.
When a customer pays, the streaming platforms make money, which is shared with music labels and Indian Performing Right Society or IPRS, a body that works to legitimize the use of copyrighted music by music users by issuing them licences and collecting royalties from music users, for and on behalf of IPRS members, which include authors, composers and publishers of music.
“When music labels make money, they spend more on new content, resulting in film producers (for film music) and artistes (non-film music) making more money. When IPRS makes money, they share with artistes and publishers,” Vikram Mehra, managing director, Saregama, said. “To encourage streaming platforms to turn paid, we have agreed to waive off minimum guarantees for those who go fully behind a paywall,” Mehra added.
“There are three ways that we intend to grow our subscribers in the market,” a Spoallowing spokesperson said. “First, ensuring that our new users have trial opportunities so they understand the value proposition of premium. Second, focusing on the right partnerships in the market. In the past, we’ve seen growth based on our partnerships with OEMs (original equipment manufactify turers), e-commerce platforms, and even banking brands. Third, ensuring more access to premium through payment gateways and other means,” the spokesperson said.
The platform that has run premium-centric marketing campaigns also has several plans, including individual, student, duo, and family, that users can choose from. It is also trying to build premium offline fan experiences and in-app fan engagement with artistes and their music, as an incentive for more users to subscribe to Spotify in the future.
An Airtel spokesperson said it is experimenting with restrictions of features (across downloads, ads frequency, hello tunes and others) to drive up paid subscriptions for its streaming service Wynk.
“We are also bringing artistes closer to their top fans by building exclusive experiences for our paid users that give them an opportunity to meet their favourite artistes one-on-one, participate in masterclasses and so on,” the person added.
Wynk recently organized meet-ups with international artistes like Ed Sheeran and Martin Garrix, as well as popular Indian artistes such as Jubin Nautiyal, King, Darshan and Nani.
According to a JioSaavn spokesperson, the free tier of audio OTT platforms in India will increasingly resemble Western models with limited user interaction. This includes restrictions on song skips, forward or backward, shuffling, playlist creation, and access to exclusive content. Meanwhile, several services continue to see value in the freemium model where at least some content can be sampled for free.
A JioSaavn spokesperson says free tier of audio platforms in India will resemble Western models