Spotify is doubling down on its investments in the global market to balloon the user base as it hopes to boost revenue growth. After making the music streaming services available in most Asian markets, the company is now eyeing India as it struggles in markets such as the US and Canada where it has more subscribers than rival services such as Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music.
The company was said to be in talks with major record labels in India to secure music rights before planning a launch. The company has now publicly confirmed that it has signed a deal with T-Series, one of the biggest music labels in India. Spotify now streams over 160,000 songs and streamable content, the digital rights of which are owned by T-Series. This could be seen as a precursor to the Spotify’s impending debut in India, which could happen as early as January 31, according to a report by Variety.
Amid the speculations of Spotify’s arrival into India’s overcrowded music streaming market, its collaboration with T-Series has inescapably birthed two sets of people on the Internet, one of which vouches for its entry into India with T-Series as a partner while the other is decrying it. The latter belongs to the people who support PewDiePie, the biggest YouTube channel subscriber-wise. Spotify has received a backlash from people to not be supportive of PewDiePie, provided both Spotify and PewDiePie belong to Sweden. T-Series had been tied with YouTube’s renowned creator PewDiePie, both racing to become the YouTube channel with the maximum number of subscribers.
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PewDiePie, a YouTube channel created in 2010 by Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, has enjoyed the status of having the record number of subscribers on YouTube, but a potential threat loomed on it when India’s T-Series began gaining more popularity and subscribers, thanks to the population of Bollywood-frenzied Indians. The race to become the biggest YouTube channel sparked a war on the Internet on a global scale that divided it into PewDiePie fans and T-Series supporters. PewDiePie retained the spot, thanks to global outrage against T-Series but the fans are miffed again.
Spotify’s announcement to stream T-Series music on its platform has once again divided the Internet, with people now making accusations that the company is against PewDiePie. The PewDiePie supporters have called out Spotify and said they would switch to Apple Music, Spotify’s biggest rival in the US.
You’re supporting T-Series? Gotta move to Apple Music 🙁
— austin le fleur* (@AustinFlowerBoy) January 14, 2019
A Reddit thread that is seemingly a salt mine for sally against PewDiePie even mentions that ‘PooDiePie’ followers are on a “suicide watch”. The thread has invited criticism for both Spotify and PewDiePie, including remarks suggesting the latter is “capitalising off this imaginary feud.” Some Redditors even applauded T-Series for trumping by signing the deal with Spotify.
Spotify has not officially confirmed when it plans to enter India, however, it is said the services could be announced on January 31. The company currently has nearly 200 million subscribers, 87 million of which have paid subscriptions. Spotify is available in as many as 78 countries.
