Saavn

Saavn is an Indian music streaming service and a digital distributor of Bollywood, English and other regional Indian music across the world. Since it was founded in 2007, the company has acquired rights to over 36 million music tracks in 15 languages. Saavn is available on iOS, Android, Windows and Web. It has over 22 million monthly active users.

On 23 March 2018, Saavn announced merger with JioMusic in a deal worth more than $1 billion.^[4]

History

Saavn was founded in 2006 as BODVOD Network and initially distributed Bollywood content in North America in a B2B offering.^[5] Saavn later shifted its core focus to become a music destination for fans of Bollywood and other Indic music in 2009, re-launching its flagship product, Saavn.com, to become a B2C offering with an improved user interface and faster, smarter search capabilities. A user can easily download songs from this portal as well.^[6]

As of today, Saavn is one of the largest distributors of Bollywood and other Indian entertainment in the world.

On March 23, 2018, Reliance Industries Ltd took a majority stake in Saavn. Reliance Industries Limited ("RIL") executed definitive agreements for combination of Saavn with its digital music service, JioMusic. The combined entity is valued at over US$1 billion. The leadership at Saavn remains unchanged driven by the three co-founders: CEO Rishi Malhotra, Executive Vice Chairman Paramdeep Singh and President Vinodh Bhat.

Products and services

Saavn’s products are Saavn Pro, its music service that offers offline listening without advertisements, and its mobile apps, Saavn for iOS and Saavn for Android.

In December 2014, Saavn partnered with Twitter to introduce a tweet-powered radio station, @SaavnRadio.

Saavn also integrated a social networking feature with its music streaming service in April 2015. Saavn Social allows users to follow the profiles and playlists of their friends as well as celebrities.^[7] Users can share any song, album or playlist with their friends and chat about music real time.

Revenue model

Saavn’s business model is based on Digital-Advertising services (offers service with advertisement) and Subscription-based Business model (Saavn Pro, offers ad-free and offline streaming).

Partnerships

Amazon

Saavn was one of the first music streaming services in India^[8] to be made available on Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, which shipped nationwide in October 2017.

Shazam

In 2013, Shazam, a media engagement company, entered into an exclusive partnership with Saavn.^[9] As a part of this, Saavn’s music library was incorporated in Shazam’s music database. Saavn aims to provide its users with an enhanced listening experience with Shazam’s music engagement tools especially in popular genres like bhangra, devotional, ghazals, Carnatic, Indipop and regional language music like Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, and Bhojpuri.^[10][11][12]

Twitter

Saavn launched its radio model in 2013 and later partnered with Twitter to crowd-source song requests via the custom handle @SaavnRadio.^[13][14]

Apps for iOS, Android and Chrome

In 2010, Saavn introduced its first mobile app - Saavn Music for Android. This was followed up with Saavn Music for iPhone. Saavn for iOS has received 9000+ ratings with an average rating of 4.5 Stars.^[15] In mid-2011, Saavn added its latest app, Saavn Music for Chrome, to the Chrome Web Store and now it's on Windows App Store for Windows Phone running OS 8.1 & 10.

Facebook

Saavn was selected in December, 2011^[16] to be Facebook’s first global partner and first Indian partner on the Open Graph platform. This integration with Facebook allows users to stream any of Saavn’s millions of tracks using their Facebook logins and to listen to music from Facebook. In the first three days of launch, Open Graph doubled the total number of visitors to Saavn.com, and increased the number of visitors from Facebook to Saavn by 15 times.^[17] Nearly half of Saavn’s user base uses Facebook Connect.

Sony

Saavn cracked a partnership deal with Sony to acquire Sony’s entire database of music catalog in 2012.^[18][19]

Other partners

Saavn has 900+ label partnerships including Universal, Sony, T-Series, Tips, YRF, Saregama, Eros and Warner Music. Saavn’s brand partners include global names like AT&T, Bose, Lays, General Motors, Nokia, Samsung, and Western Union.^[20]

Creative collaborator

Saavn teamed up with popular Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor in 2014.^[21] He joined Saavn to collaborate on consumer marketing ideas and business development.^[22] The actor was reportedly interested in working at a more business-oriented level at Saavn. He has expressed his desire to help "guide the brand, influence programming, connect with the next generation of music listeners and ultimately help build the best music product in India and potentially the world."^[23] The partnership led to a number of ad campaigns that were launched in India and select international networks, and generated more than 7 million combined YouTube views.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Saavn actively participates in philanthropy, and in February 2015 partnered with Akshaya Patra Foundation for the launch of #MusicForMeals. For every hour of music streamed on Saavn, the company helps provide mid-day meals to school-going children through Akshaya Patra's network of schools.^[24]

Saavn also works with The Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), a not-for-profit industry body that represents the interests of mobile and online value added services in India. In May 2015, Saavn co-founder and president, Vinodh Bhat was named as vice-chairman of IAMAI.^[25]

Switch to subscription-only service

Beginning November 2016, Saavn started moving to a paid-only model (except India), initially offering listening for free for 30 days and after that a monthly subscription fee of $3.99.^[26]

Saavn Original Programs

Saavn Artist in Residence

In 2016, Saavn launched its Artist In Residence (AiR) program with indie artist Nucleya.

Saavn Originals

Saavn later expanded its content offering into Saavn Original Programming, a slate of original, non-music audio programs that range from Bollywood to comedy and storytelling to cricket. Saavn’s audio shows include: "No Filter Neha," "Qisson ka Kona with Neelesh Misra," "Trial by Error: The Aarushi Files," and "Kahaani Express", among others.

Saavn Artist Originals

In early 2017, Saavn introduced Artist Originals, an original music program releasing and marketing tracks and albums by South Asian artists, songwriters and producers from around the world. Saavn was the first streaming app to offer original audio programming in India. Indian hip-hop star Naezy, Toronto-based DJ Sickick, singer-songwriter Prateek Kuhad, U.K.-based independent artists Zack Knight and Jasmin Walia, electronic artist Sandunes, Canadian artist The PropheC, contemporary classical duo Shadow and Light and UK musician Raxstar have also launched songs under the Artist Originals program.

See also

• Bollywood Hungama
• Gaana
• JioMusic
• Raaga
• Wynk

References

External links

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