We all have that one person in our life (at least I do) who can’t stop raving about how amazing the Swedish music streaming platform Spotify is. Known for some pretty great features and even better playlists, this music application has undoubtedly taken over many Apple Music loyalists too. And finally, Indians too can experience the phenomenon that is Spotify. The streaming app’s silent launch on Google’s Play Store took place last night, shortly after Warner Music Group filed an injunction against Spotify in India.
“India has an incredibly rich music culture and to best serve this market, we’re launching a custom-built experience. Not only will Spotify bring Indian artists to the world, we’ll also bring the world’s music to fans across India. Spotify’s music family just got a whole lot bigger,” said Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify. Spotify’s premium membership is available only to those to the app’s existing users of the service, as well as those on Android. The app is available on Apple’s App Store and the Windows Store, however, the option to avail to premium membership is not available yet.
Spotify has various membership plans fore the user to choose from - From a 30-day free trial to premium plans starting at INR 119 per month and INR 1189 for a year long membership. Also, the app has a special student discount of 50% on the monthly membership rate.
Earlier last year, the music streaming giant confirmed that India had finally found its place on Spotify’s to-go list of countries. The announcement was made by Spotify Co-founder and CEO, Daniel Ek during their investors day presentation. Finally, India too would get a taste of heaven. But the rest of the year was quite a dry spell with absolutely no word from Spotify about the exact date of its arrival. In fact, in mid-2018, it was reported that Spotify was struggling in negotiating deals with many Indian record labels, consequently delaying the entire process. But in November, we witnessed some progress when it was found that Spotify had actually set up an office and hired employees in Mumbai. Spotify was expected to launch in the coming six months and we honestly couldn’t wait.
Just last month, Spotify announced its deal with Indian music label T-Series, the world’s second-biggest YouTube channel. While this resulted in an appropriate amount of enthusiasm across the internet, what followed was even more exciting. Spotify, it seems, has accidentally leaked it’s arrival date in India through its end-user terms and conditions which included the name India in the list of countries where the terms and conditions would be effective as of January 31, 2019. This was first reported by Variety.
Feature image credit: techgenyz.com
If you enjoyed this article, we suggest you read: