Gaana enters Shows & Podcast Originals segment; Aim to Host India’s Largest Podcast Library by FY21-end

India's largest music streaming app, Gaana has announced its first batch of platform-exclusive line-up of podcasts and shows, including ‘Ummeed’ with Zakir Khan, ‘Confessions’ with Sunny Leone and ‘Life ki Ranneeti’ with Rannvijay Singha that will go live on Gaana in Nov-Dec’19. These are a part of the brand’s overarching vision to host the country’s widest and most diverse range of original audio content by the end of FY 2021.

Commissioned by Gaana, produced by the hosts & syndicated from networks, the shows & podcasts in multiple languages span categories like Comedy, Bollywood, Devotional, News, Kids, Motivational, Astrology, Business, Lifestyle &. Culture and Self Help among others. Gaana currently hosts over 3000 diverse shows & podcasts in multiple languages including ‘Cyrus Says’, ‘The Bhagavad Gita’, ‘Stories of Akbar Birabal’, KadhaiPodcast's PonniyinSelvan and ‘Paisa Vaisa’ among others.

Speaking at the launch, Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal said, “Shows & Podcasts have the potential to be among the most popular mainstream non-music genres in our country owing to the diversity of our audience. At Gaana, we have been investing steadily in this space, and have now taken it up a notch with our Original Shows & Podcasts that would engage our users with interesting content that will inform, entertain and enthral them in more ways than one."



Gaana Podcast Originals ‘Confessions’ Host & Bollywood Diva Sunny Leone said, "I have always been judged by people for who they assume me to be. Judging someone is easy, even if you may not have walked in their shoes, or don't know the whole story. This fear of judgement leads most of us to brush our dark secrets under the carpet, and suffer in isolation. My upcoming Gaana Podcast Original ‘Confessions’ is about sharing this emotional burden that often seems too ugly to embrace. During the course of the show, I'll help fans embrace themselves by helping them reconcile even though they may have wronged or have been wronged. There's no judgement and no questions asked, just a friend in need."

Gaana Podcast Original 'Life Ki Rann Neeti' host, Rannvijay Singha said, "In my first ever podcast, 'Life Ki Rann Neeti', I wanted to unravel the journey, sacrifices & struggles that individuals go through before they achieve success and stardom. The idea behind the podcast was to share deeply personal stories from the lives of my family & friends who have inspired me and been an influence in my journey. I want to share the same lessons through fun and insightful conversations, while. offering today's millennial's life-lessons that will help them garner success in their personal and professional lives."

India is the world’s third-largest podcast market, second only to the US and China, and is one of the fastest-growing podcast markets globally. This presents a massive opportunity of growth for original podcasts & shows in the Indian market.

Gaana is India’s No. 1 music streaming app with more than 125 million monthly active users. Featuring more than 45 million songs across Bollywood, International and 30 Indic languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, English, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Bengali, Assamese & Oriya. Launched in April 2010 by Times Internet, it is India’s go-to music app across genres and languages, offering unlimited, free and legal access to music. Gaana is owned by Times Internet and Tencent.

Music App Gaana Looking to Break-Even in Next 4-5 Years

Music app Gaana expects to achieve break-even in the next 4-5 years with 100 per cent year-on-year revenue growth and traction of paid users on its platform.

The company is also planning to invest in non-music genre to increase the engagement time of users on the platform.

Industry will become profitable when 50% of Indian people start using streaming apps, and 'paid music' as a model becomes the norm, Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal told PTI.

"Our revenue have been growing 100 per cent year-on-year. We expect to reach break-even at this rate in next 4-5 years," he added.

The Times Internet Group firm expects to double the number of monthly active users on its platform to 200 million in the next two years representing around 50 per cent share of the overall market.

"In next 3-4 years, we expect 500-600 million users will start using music app out of which we expect 30 million to start paying for music. This will take music streaming segment towards healthy profits. We will maintain our share of over 50 per cent in this kind of market as well," Agarwal said.

The company raised USD 115 million last year, which includes USD 100 million from Chinese company Tencent and USD 15 million from Times Internet.

Besides music, Gaana is now expanding non-music content to enhance user engagement.

"We are basically focussing on content from motivational speakers, meditation, workouts, comedy and story telling. This will enhance engagement of users on our platform," Agarwal said.

Gaana has also partnered with Google Playstore to launch an instant app for listeners who want to experience the app without actually downloading it.

"This feature is targeted towards the next 100 million users coming online. We have registered a 5 per cent surge in app installs per day as more people are realising the convenience of being able to listen to their favourite songs anytime anywhere even before they download our app," Agarwal said. PTI PRS

Music Startup Gaana To Raise $115 Mn From Tencent, Times Internet

New Delhi-based Gamma Gaana Ltd., the parent company of music streaming service Gaana, is reportedly raising $115 million from Chinese investment firm Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Times Internet. Notably, Gaana is a Times Internet subsidiary.

With this investment, Tencent acquires a minority stake in Gaana, which was so far a wholly owned subsidiary of Times Internet.

Multiple media reports confirmed that Tencent and Gaana confirmed the deal was taking place.

The funds to be raised will be used by Gaana to further invest in artificial intelligence (AI) related technology to personalize music experiences for consumers and to further develop its subscription services for paying users, and to develop aligned music experiences for Gaana users, said an another media report.

Launched in April 2010 by Times Internet, Gaana.com is a commercial music streaming service providing free and licensed music content that are both Indian and international languages.

In October 2015, Micromax had invested in Gaana for a minority stake. Other than this, Gaana does not have any other investors on board.

Later in December 2016, Gaana announced that it had crossed 50 Million app downloads.

Music streaming services in India are generally considered as money-losing business. One promising, venture-backed streaming company in India called Dhingana struggled to secure licenses from record labels and create a sustainable business. Dhingana was snapped up in a fire sale in 2014 by Rdio, which filed for bankruptcy the next year and was sold to Pandora Media Inc.

Last time any Indian music streaming startup had raised funds was Saavn, which raised undisclosed amount from former Vodafone global CEO Arun Sarin, in September 2015.

Tencent, which has also invested in India's Flipkart, is dominating on the global music streaming business. It owns Tencent Music, a popular service in China and also swapped shares with Spotify last year, giving it a stake in one of the most popular music streaming services in Europe and the U.S. Tencent also owns Joox in Southeast Asia.

China’s Tencent Holdings has its eyes set on India’s booming startup industry. It made its investor entry into the Indian startup industry three years ago in 2015 by leading a $90 million round in Practo Technologies, a Chennai-based digital health platform. Later it made $700 million investment in India’s ecommerce leader Flipkart, in April last year.