Analyzing the Product Adoption lifecycle for Music streaming services in India

4 min readMay 25, 2021

We love listening to music, and it is a part of our everyday life. From movie soundtracks to albums by our favorite artists, music is one of the many things we engross in on daily basis.

Two decades ago, compact discs (CDs), music channels, radio, television and live performances were the main forms of listening. Then advancements in technology led to the development of Mobile Music Devices like mp3 players, Walkman and iPods.

According to a Cisco report, India is becoming a big battleground for video and audio streaming services firms. This is due to the number of smartphone users in India is expected to double to 829 million by 2022 from 404.1 million in 2017. The heightened interest in India’s music-streaming segment comes at a time when the over-the-top (OTT) industry is having its moment in the sun thanks to increasing smartphone and internet adoption, coupled with sliding data prices.

Recent progress in this area include, Lossless audio quality streaming, 5G For Streaming, and many more. Revenue in the Music Streaming segment is projected to reach ₹42,725 M. The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to ₹719.02.

Top music streaming companies in Indian are:

Spotify
JioSaavn
Apple Music
YouTube Music
Gaana
Amazon Prime Music
Wynk Music

What is Product Adoption Lifecycle?

The Product Adoption Lifecycle is a sociological model that describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups.

Profiles of product adopters

1. Innovators

Innovators are venturesome — They are enthusiastic to try new products at some risk.

2. Early Adopters

Early adopters are guided by respect. They are opinion leaders in their communities and adopt new products early but carefully.

3. Early Majority

The early majority are deliberated. Although they are rarely leaders, they adopt a new product before the average person.

4. Late Majority

Late majority are skeptical. They adopt an innovation only after most people have tried it.

5. Laggards

Laggards are tradition-bound. They are suspicious only when it has become something of a tradition itself.

The inclusion and study of the non-adopter category is crucial as it is reflective of reality, as not all consumers adopt all new product and service offerings. They include:

Unaware group
Symbolic rejecters
Symbolic adopters
Trail adopters
Trial rejecters

India’s streaming music market is now 200 million strong — but hardly anyone’s paying for it.

After Saavn (now JioSaavn) launched in India, three more home-grown apps (Gaana, Wynk, and Hungama), and five international apps (Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Resso) have established a presence in the Indian streaming market.

While modes of payments for music are not necessarily, direct; bundled payments and advertisements have led to the success of the streaming market to thrive in India so far.

Some of the challenges that this industry is facing are:

Piracy and value gap
Unwillingness to pay for music
Varied streaming platforms
Sharing of Music
Subscription costs
Centralization of Music
‘Per-Stream’ rates offered by music streaming
Excessive focus on music streaming services, neglect of system as a whole
Failure to see streaming services as part of wider systems of music and ownership

Growth and product adoption comparison with other music streaming services

Growth hacks that can be used to gain the adopters

Diverse music choices
Bundling services
AI-driven music recommendation
Adoption of music categories for healing, focus and meditation
Encouraging Indian classical / traditional music for Indian crowd
Subscription cost for Premium
Tighter legal framework for services that are responsible for the distribution of music to prevent piracy