Music apps in India — product adoption overview
Online music streaming platforms have become very popular in India. Now even in India, people can listen to music anytime, anywhere & sometimes with a minimal subscription charge. It has become the main source of music for many users in India. It is easier for even musicians to distribute their music to people while catering to the problem of piracy.
Indian market is brimming with music streaming services from both Indian origins like Gaana, JioSaavn, Hungama, Wynk and international brands like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Youtube music.
Profiles of adopters
In order to get a new product adopted by a market, one needs to understand the profile of various Customer adopters. It is a standard model that depicts who and when buys the product.
1) Innovators are the first to adopt new products and services. They are technophile and experimentalists who need to have the most innovative and new products available in the market. They will be happy to toy around with an MVP as long as it is exclusive and one of its kind. Innovators typically represent 2.5 % of users. In the Indian music online streaming industry, the innovators would be the young generation as they would be more tech-savvy and would generally be wealthy in order to afford their hunger for a new product.
2) Early Adopters are the second to adopt any new product. They will form an opinion about the product and tend to be the most influential section of the users. They would rely on the reviews of innovators before jumping to adopt the product. Early Adopters typically represent 13.5 % of target users. In the Indian music online streaming industry, the Early Adopters would be the teenagers and the young generation who would use the app and give reviews on social platforms.
3) Early Majority are the masses who essentially influenced by reviews and by innovators & Early Adopters. They rely heavily on the influencers and want to spend wisely. Early Majority constitutes around 34% of the user. In the Indian music online streaming industry, Early Majority would be adults who do a comparative analysis of the music quality, inventory and so on before buying the subscriptions.
4) Late Majority are more reluctant to adopt a new product. They need extra support and assurances for using a new product. They generally adopt a product once it is well established in the market. Both early and late majority makes up most of the target user. Late Majority constitutes around 34% of the user. In the Indian music online streaming industry, Late Majority are the adults who will fall under the middle class of India.
5) Laggard constitutes 16% of the target users. They are the last ones to adopt a product and generally not very tech-savvy. Their entry to the adoption cycle marks the onset of the decline of the product or hype around the product. They typically take their reviews from their peers. Laggards are generally old people. In the Indian music online streaming industry, Laggards could be economically weak and they fail to influence others for any product.
However there could be exceptions - We can have tech-savvy, high-income Laggards or technophile, Early Adopters, as well. So, the profiles of the adopters are used as estimate tools for the product industry.
Chasm is the gap that occurs in the Product Adoption Lifecycle between Early and Late Majority where after Early Adopters have adopted a product, now it must be sold to masses. Without eliminating major bugs or enabling all the features of the product, a product can never cross the chasm. Competitive pricing, internet penetration, ease of install and use can also help in this case.
Music apps are not a necessity
In 2018, India provided the cheapest mobile internet in the world. User penetration of music apps is 7.0% in 2020 and is expected to hit 7.6% by 2024 as predicted by experts on Statista. Revenue in the Music Streaming market is predicted to be US$244m in 2020.
So, the music streaming market is still growing, albeit at a slow rate.
Here are few factors and challenges affecting the rate of adoption in music streaming service:
a) India is a poor country: The lack of expendable income prevents Indians to spend on online music streaming services. They still stick to traditional free services like FM.
b) Not Technically equipped users: The users may not be tech-savvy enough to get on to this platform.
c) Piracy: Digital piracy leads to loss of revenues for the music streaming services and harms the artists. In India, with the advent of these services, the piracy of music has lowered from before but it still happens at large.
d) Competition: The pricing of the new services would depend a lot on the already existing players in the market. So there have to be some new offers, varied collection of songs to lure in users from the target segments of the existing loyal users of other apps.
Comparative snapshot of music streaming services in India
Growth hacks
Growth hacks are strategic decisions that accelerate product adoption. Some growth hacks that can help apps to acquire users faster are:
a) As India is a very diverse country, to increase the subscription or faster adoption more regional language music can be introduced.
b) Cheap or free subscription to the services.
c) Customized and recommended playlist ensures engagement of users
d) Conversion of free users to paid users can be enhanced with discounts, & ad-free music, bundle packs (such as Amazon Prime for Amazon music)
Summary
There are a lot of challenges in the product adoption lifecycle for the various music services in India, but the market is still growing. With the rise of internet penetration and India having a large population of youth, music streaming services seem to have a promising future.
References:
https://www.digit.in/features/internet/best-music-streaming-services-showdown-40258.html
https://soundcharts.com/blog/india-music-market-overview
https://www.statista.com/outlook/209/119/music-streaming/india#market-users
