International music streaming app Moodagent comes to India

Moodagent, a music streaming service headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, has launched in India, following its success in countries such as Germany and Australia. Currently streaming only international music, the service says it is looking at acquiring a catalogue across multiple Indian languages in the coming months.

“We see India as a huge market, where there are billions of music lovers. However, we are entering now because of what we think is our specialization of technology which powered by AI (artificial intelligence), helps make the right recommendations to users and understand their mood and choice,” said Jyoti Handa, executive vice-president and managing director of Moodagent India. Handa said the company is looking at partnering with Indian music labels for film and non-film music in the next few months. The service, which is currently available on Apple and Google Play Store, and Mi Store and Huawei App Gallery, is priced at ₹119 per month.

According to the Ficci EY media and entertainment industry report released in March this year, the Indian music segment was valued at ₹1,530 crore in 2020. Streaming apps have a base of approximately 200 million active monthly users, but the paid subscriber base is still around 2 million. Piracy continues to be the biggest challenge plaguing the music ecosystem, dealing a 67% blow to revenues. Paid music OTT subscribers are expected to cross 5 million by 2023 and generate revenues of ₹180 crore.

India’s audio streaming market is dominated by Gaana, the streaming service owned by Times Internet Ltd, with a 30% share, followed by JioSaavn (24%), Wynk Music (15%), Spotify (15%), Google Play Music (10%), and others (7%), according to a study by Kantar and audience measurement and analytics company VTION last January. Live Mint