Gaana’s Advertising Revenue Continues to See a Stable Growth of 100% YOY

• After the global streaming platform - Spotify entered Indian market, it has been on an advertising spree.
• Business Insider spoke to Gaana to find out how it is adjusting to new macro-economic changes.
• Prashan Agarwal told us that music streaming market is wide enough to hold all brands together.

Music streaming app Gaana is now leading the market with more than 100 million users who stream across 3.2 billion songs a month. There are around 150 million MAUs in the online music streaming industry and Gaana occupies the major chunk.

The application is also witnessing a 100% YoY growth in its advertising revenue.

Sharing what kind of advertisers have been investing in Gaana, Prashan Agarwal, CEO Gaana, said, “Foodtech, Video Streaming and OEMs are among the biggest advertisers this quartner, with banner ads featuring voice-over emerging as one of the most popular formats.”

However, even after Spotify’s entry in the market with a massive campaign, Gaana continues to hold on its spirit. Agarwal believes that the music streaming market will continue to boom, opening enough space to contain all brands.

“Music streaming will see a massive growth in the next two years, with more than 400 million users likely to come online. This massive and diverse user-base can comfortably accommodate a couple of music streaming apps. As the market leader in the sector, we are confident of maintaining our top spot based on our deep understanding of the Indian consumer’s music tastes, our seamless user experience and vast library of over 45 million songs,” said Agarwal.

Reason of its Growth

After Jio, the music-streaming market saw an immense growth because the internet was suddenly affordable and Agarwal believes that the brand has grown at this pace because of the new, innovative initiatives that they have taken since the inception.

“The rapid influx of 4G smartphones and affordable internet connectivity was a major turning point for all consumer internet businesses across the country, including ours. We have grown 10X in the last three years and currently have more than 100 Mn monthly active users. The biggest reason behind this significant growth has been our focus on cutting-edge innovation for the Indian customer with regard to music recommendation and redefining our product experience to serve first-time internet users,” he said.

Localization and Innovation

Gaana now has a vast 45 million music library spread across 30 Indian languages. The brand holds pride in its deep Indian roots and has been adopting new technologies like AI and Machine Learning to make its application user-friendly for people who speak the local languages.

“As of now, 17% of our overall music consumption is solely based on these algorithmic recommendations, are we hope to increase this by more than double in the coming year. Gaana’s Voice Interactive Search is a popular feature amongst tech-savvy urban millennials, while also being of great convenience to elderly users from smaller cities who often have a hard time typing. This feature has been one of the key pillars in facilitating easy access to our vast 45 million music library across 30 Indic languages,” said Agarwal.