Your Tech Story

Mobile app

Spotify App Launched in India Providing Access to Forty Million Songs

News, start-up, Tech News / By

Amid a legal conflict with music label Warner Music Group, Spotify, successfully launched its app for the Indian users yesterday. The company quietly rolled out the app for the Indian users on Wednesday, and it is also expected that the Indian Spotify app may be used to test the upcoming features to the app.

spotify
Image Source: rollingstone.com

With the launch of the app, Spotify will provide its Indian users with access to over 40 million songs, and in different languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, etc. The app is specially designed for the Indian users, such that they will be able to create playlists for the trending songs in the major cities of India. The app also offers on-demand songs with a free account.

“India has an incredibly rich music culture, and to best serve this market, we’re launching a custom-built experience,” Spotify founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, said in a statement. “Not only will Spotify bring Indian artists to the world, but we’ll also bring the world’s music to fans across India.”

The app is offering various different plans for its users in India. The offers include one day to monthly plans, under which for one day access the users need to pay 13 rupees ($0.18), for a week they have to pay 39 rupees ($0.55), and one single month plan is for 129 rupees ($1.81). Spotify has also introduced the student plans offering discounts up to 50 per cent.

Although the company had set up its office in India last year and had plans to launch the app in India in the month of February in the same year, in order to get the licensing deals with major record labels including Sony, Universal and Warner Music, the launch got delayed for a whole year.

Even though the company has finally launched the app in India, it is a bit late, as there are many other companies including Apple Music, Google Play/YouTube Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, and Amazon, that are already ruling the music streaming industry in India. So it can be a bit tough for the company to establish itself in the Indian music streaming industry amid the high competition.

The Sweden-based company Spotify is operating since 2007 in several other countries, having a huge client base across the globe. As of February 2019 records, the company is catering to 207 million total monthly active users, including 96 million paying subscribers.

How Two School Kids Are Successfully Running a $1.5 Million Mobile App Company from India

Founder, India, start-up, Tech Story / By

Imagine a 12 and a 14 year old brother-pair standing before the crowd, numbering approximately 5,500 – talking about business. Sounds a bit fictional, doesn’t it? Well, it’s a true story of two youngsters from India. The age when majority of kids are busy playing video games, or preparing school projects, these youngsters from Chennai are achieving what thousands of start-ups are still dreaming of. They started their own app development unit back in 2011 and have reached milestones during the span of six years.

The founders of GoDimensions, an app development unit, Shravan Kumaran, now 16, is the President and his younger brother Sanjay Kumaran, now 15, is the CEO of the company. The app development idea sprouted out of their passion in coding and an encouraging attitude of their father, Kumaran Surendran who is the director of Symantec, an American security software company. The Kumaran brothers launched their first app Catch Me Cop after developing a whopping 150 test apps. Their dedication is definitely praise worthy.

Catch Me Cop grabbed attention of multiple internet giants including cnet.com and the result was their app displayed on world’s leading tech company Apple’s App Store, a grand success for the young entrepreneurs. Catch Me Cop is a mobile game in which a convict escapes the prison and runs through various difficult terrains like a desert, maze, forest, etc. and the citizens are in search of this convict. The game became a sensation among the young as well as the adults who enjoyed catching the convict.

GoDimensions has launched 7 applications available for iOS and 3 for Android platform. The company has recently launched an app for the Windows phone platform. Shravan, currently a class 12th student and Sanjay, studying in class 10 in HUS, Chennai work from their bedroom occupied with Apple Macs, Galaxy Notes and every high-end digital platform.

The long list of apps developed under GoDimensions hood include Alphabet Board – with a 5 star rating on app store, Prayer Planet – an app for praying to the God, ETC, CarRacingHD, Emergencybooth, E15, ColourPallete, and goDonate – a platform to share excess food, clothes, etc. to the needy. These apps, in total, have already crossed the 70,000+ download mark in over 60 countries with an average rating of 4.5 stars.

The brothers’ interest is not limited to coding and app development. Sanjay, the youngest of two, loves to play football and is the goalkeeper for his school’s football team whereas Shravan loves to play cricket and keyboard. Their mother and former journalist, Jyothi Lakshmi, recalls that she got suggestions that her children would be more productive from home rather than in school. But they both aim to complete their formal education and grow the company parallelly.

The young brother-duo were spotted during a TEDx talk and at a SAP event in Bangalore where they talked about sketching a business plan. Sanjay Kumaran quotes, “I believe that great UI is key for a great Business.” The company’s recent turnover entered the Crore club and their increasing user base will see a massive growth in income too.