Spotify signs a global content deal with T-Series

Music streaming service Spotify has signed a global content deal with India’s leading music label T-Series to strengthen its music catalog, ahead of a likely foray into the country.

As per the deal, Spotify users across the world will get access to T-Series’ entire music catalog comprising of over 160,000 tracks across various genres like Bollywood soundtracks, regional soundtracks, non-movie albums and songs from emerging artists among others from today. Terms of the deal were however not disclosed.

ET had reported in November last year that Spotify is close to signing a deal with T-Series and was in the final stages of negotiations with other Indian labels like Eros Music and Zee Music. Times Music already has an international deal with Spotify and was in talks for an agreement for the India market. Times Music is a part of the Times Group whose digital arm owns ETtech.

Spotify told TechCrunch that over 4 million users are regularly listening to Indian music on its platform and there are estimated 30 million Indians living in markets where the service is already available, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

The Swedish music streaming giant is set to enter the India market in the coming months, after first announcing plans to enter the country in March last year, during the company’s investor day presentation, just prior to its direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It had also roped in former OLX India CEO Amarjit Singh Batra as the India country head early last year.

India is expected to play a key role in Spotify’s international expansion plans, and according to media reports, had even become a bargaining chip during the licensing negotiations between the Swedish company and major record labels.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, however, had downplayed these licensing problems during the company’s earnings conference call in November last year, saying that launch delays due to licensing is “commonplace in this industry and nothing related to our overall strategy”.

He also said that India is a fragmented marketplace, with a lot of different local labels and local publishers, due to which it is difficult to predict as to when they will enter the world’s second-largest Internet market.

Spotify, which recently surpassed 200 million global monthly active users, will compete with rivals like Gaana*, Amazon Prime Music, JioSaavn, Apple Music, Google Play Music, and Hungama in the country.

*Disclosure: Gaana was incubated by Times Internet that owns ETtech