# Spotify turns 2 in India: A report card of the popular streaming service and its next big bet | Tech News (HT Tech) > Amarjit Batra, Managing Director of Spotify India, lays down the company's learnings, focus and future plans. # Spotify turns 2 in India: A report card of the popular streaming service and its next big bet ## Amarjit Batra, Managing Director of Spotify India, lays down the company's learnings, focus and future plans. Aug 21 2022, 15:16 IST ![Follow on Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/follow-us-facebook.png) ![Follow on Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/follow-us-facebook-hover.png) ![Share](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/Share.png) ![Share](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/Shareclicked.png) ![Share on WhatsApp](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/whatsapp.png) ![Share on WhatsApp](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/whatsapp-hover.png) ![Share on Twitter](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/twitter.png) ![Share on Twitter](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/twitter-hover.png) ![Share on Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/facebook.png) ![Share on Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/facebook-hover.png) ![Bookmark](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/Bookmark.png) ![Bookmarked](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/Bookmarked.png) ![Interview with Amarjit Singh Batra, Managing Director, Spotify India.](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/img/2021/02/26/1600x900/WhatsApp_Image_2021-02-26_at_11.48.48_1614320345527_1614320350400.jpeg) Interview with Amarjit Singh Batra, Managing Director, Spotify India. (HT Tech) ![Author Photo](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/HTTech-new-circle-logo.png) ### By MARCIA SEKHOSE Spotify entered the Indian market two years ago amid much fanfare. The streaming service garnered 2 million users in the first few months itself despite a brief rocky patch with legal issues. Now that Spotify has more or less settled in the country, it is now aiming to expand its popular podcast portfolio as well as push local languages, a mammoth yet untapped segment that has continued to attract the international internet firms. In an interview with HT Tech, Amarjit Singh Batra, Managing Director of Spotify India, lays down the company's learnings, focus and future plans. India’s user growth Also read click here. “We are above the forecast that we had projected for India and India is one of the fast growing markets. So we can safely say without numbers that last year has been fantastic for us and we’ve made significant inroads into the Indian market since the time we went live two years back." Local language push “The first year was establishing ourselves and getting the basics right. This last year has seen us grow really deep into the local market in the top languages in which streaming is happening which is Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi and so on. Overall, 3000 cities is where we’re streaming right now compared to 2,300+ cities in the first year. That means we are actually penetrating further from the Tier-II to Tier-III now and even further which is a good sign.” ALSO READ: An overview of Spotify's journey in India so far “We did some interesting campaigns and communication around some of the local languages which are Tamil, Telugu and Punjabi which are unique markets. There we have seen that our growth has been faster than normal. We are confident now that we have plans to go deeper into the market. We have local language translations happening into our product in the next few weeks, and 12 languages including Hindi is what Spotify will be available in.” Most popular plans Spotify currently offers a variety of plans in India with the most recent one being its Premium Mini plans. These bite-sized plans cost ₹7 per day, and ₹25 per week. “The number of plans that we have in India is probably the highest for any other Spotify market. The one which is the most popular right now is the latest one we offered which is the Premium Mini. After that, the annual offers are pretty popular, and we also have family and student plans which are doing well. Broadly, Premium is an interesting play for us because we know that India is not a market where people love to pay for and that’s why we’re going out and testing different plans.” “From what we’ve seen in the last few months there definitely seems to be a preference for daily and weekly plans because I think there’s a very clear reason for that also. A lot of users in India are streaming only on mobile so they don’t need 50-60 million songs, and they’re not looking for unlimited downloads; they’re happy to have 25-50 songs downloaded. That’s why I think this mobile-only plan with restricted downloads seems to have kind of caught a fancy with most of the users who only want to pay for what they want to use.” Indie music growth “I think there was a pent up demand from creators to come and create more content which I think we have seen across the board now both in podcasts and music. In music we saw this last year when there was a stop in film music for some time, we saw the amount of independent music growing suddenly, and in languages like Punjabi it went 3X. So very clearly more and more artists are looking for exposure and not only within India but globally.” Spotify also launched Radar, its global emerging-artist platform in India last year with local artists Mali, When Chai Met Toast and Taba Chake. Spotify’s playlist Indie India also grew by 90% in the last one year. Podcasts “We have seen that podcasts have been one of our strong growth drivers globally, and in India also it’s shaping up very well so we want to scale up our overall podcast business with more original content or via our partners or creators through Anchors. We also believe that someone has to do the job of creating awareness about podcasts so we’re looking to grow the market there.” Spotify has been making news for its series of major podcast deals with the Obamas, DC Studios, and more. Spotify in its Q4 earnings report highlighted that hours spent on podcasts have doubled YoY, and 25% of its MAUs now engage with podcasts. Spotify also announced at its recent Stream On event a new podcast, "Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.," by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama. In India too, Spotify has three original podcasts lined up. “India is a strategic market for us so we want to invest behind not only a short-term growth but also in a long term perspective, and we’re realising that the best way to do this is to help more creators succeed through our programs like masterclasses, Anchor and Soundup. That will be a pretty big focus. We also want to create more playlists even for podcasts where we’ve already started doing podcast playlists, podcast collections. We believe that by enhancing the discovery and helping people recommend good podcasts could be another way to cater to the growing taste.” Catch all the Latest Tech News, Mobile News, Laptop News, Gaming news, Wearables News , How To News, also keep up with us on Whatsapp channel,Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. 26 Feb, 11:51 IST spotify ![HT Tech Awards](https://tech.hindustantimes.com/ht-tech-power-list-awards-2026/httech-awards-banner-new.webp) ### Related Stories 29 Sept 2026 71,614,315,337,818 NEXT ARTICLE BEGINS ![View all](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/view-all-icon.png) ## Tips & Tricks ![Ghibli-style art](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/img/2025/03/28/414x233/ChatGPT_Ghibli_style_images_1743161814450_1743161814596.jpg) ### How to turn your photos into Ghibli-style art with ChatGPT for free: Step-by-step guide ![How to create an invitation using iPhone’s new Apple Invites app- Step-by-step guide](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/img/2025/02/14/414x233/invites_1738728829564_1739543695649.png) ### How to create an invitation using iPhone’s new Apple Invites app- Step-by-step guide ![Apple TV app arrives on Android phones and tablets: What you get and how to install it](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/img/2025/02/13/414x233/unnamed_1739426557335_1739426567634.jpg) ### Apple TV app arrives on Android phones and tablets: What you get and how to install it ![Vodafone Idea OTT plans](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Vodafone Idea users can now stream 17 OTT apps with one subscription: Here's how ![Android data transfer methods](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### How to transfer data from one Android to another using Google backup, USB-C cable, and more ## Editor’s Pick ![iPhone 16e launched with A18 chip, Apple AI—bringing flagship power on a budget: Check specs, price](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### iPhone 16e launched in India: All details about the new budget mobile from Apple ![DeepSeek was founded in China with only a fraction of the budget of the top AI companies in the US.](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### DeepSeek AI: How it works, who’s behind it, how it’s different from ChatGPT, and its big US market impact explained ![iPhone 17 Air likely to get this feature that iPhone 17 Pro models may miss out on](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### iPhone 17 Air likely to get this feature that iPhone 17 Pro models may miss out on ![Google Whisk AI explained: How remixing works, availability, and how it differs from Gemini](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Google Whisk AI explained: How remixing works, availability, and how it differs from Gemini ![iOS 18.4 beta arriving soon: Know why it is the biggest iPhone update](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### iOS 18.4 beta arriving soon: Know why it is the biggest iPhone update ## Trending Stories ![Airtel 5G SIM card will now be delivered in 10 minutes with Blinkit- How to order](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Airtel 5G SIM card will now be delivered in 10 minutes with Blinkit- How to order ![Infinix Note 50s 5G+](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Infinix Note 50s 5G+ set to launch in India with 64MP camera and MediaTek Dimensity 7300 SoC ![Xiaomi X Pro QLED Series sale starts in India: Check price, availability, and more](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Xiaomi X Pro QLED Series sale starts in India: Check price, availability, and more ![Apple Intelligence AI training](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Apple plans to train AI using your on-device data without accessing personal content or emails: Report ![CMF Buds 2](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### CMF Buds 2 key features and price revealed ahead of April 28 launch: Details inside keep up with tech ![Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/tech-facebook.png) ![Twitter](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/tech-twitter.png) ![WhatsApp](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/tech-whatsApp.png) ![Facebook](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/tech-facebook.png) ## Gaming ![Check out these five gaming monitors under ₹20,000,](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Top 5 gaming monitors under ₹20000 you should consider ![gaming consoles](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Grab gaming consoles at discounted rates during Amazon Great Indian Festival: Up to 72% off ![Pokémon GO Wild Area 2025](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Pokémon GO Wild Area 2025 to bring Grimmsnarl family, Shiny Hatenna, and global challenges ![Shade Silver](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Shade Silver free on Steam for a limited time: Here’s how to get it ![Call of duty](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/ht-tech-bg-img-90-66.png) ### Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 skips Switch 2 at launch, release date and price leak ![View all](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/view-all-icon.png) ## Trending News ### Airtel 5G SIM card will now be delivered in 10 minutes with Blinkit- How to order ![Airtel 5G SIM card will now be delivered in 10 minutes with Blinkit- How to order](https://images.livemint.com/static/static/1x1_img.gif) ### Infinix Note 50s 5G+ set to launch in India with 64MP camera and MediaTek Dimensity 7300 SoC ![Infinix Note 50s 5G+](https://images.livemint.com/static/static/1x1_img.gif) ### Xiaomi X Pro QLED Series sale starts in India: Check price, availability, and more ![Xiaomi X Pro QLED Series sale starts in India: Check price, availability, and more](https://images.livemint.com/static/static/1x1_img.gif) ### Apple plans to train AI using your on-device data without accessing personal content or emails: Report ![Apple Intelligence AI training](https://images.livemint.com/static/static/1x1_img.gif) ### CMF Buds 2 key features and price revealed ahead of April 28 launch: Details inside ![CMF Buds 2](https://images.livemint.com/static/static/1x1_img.gif) ## Trending Gadgets Mobiles Laptops Tablets ![HT Tech](https://images.hindustantimes.com/tech/static/revamp/images/png/HT_tech-new.gif) - https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/spotify-turns-2-in-india-a-report-card-of-the-popular-streaming-service-and-its-next-big-bet-71614315337818.html