Popular audio-streaming platform Spotify has completed five years in India which is the company’s 79th market in the world. Since launch, the brand has focused on growing the country’s audio creator community, localising for users and making streaming the default way for listeners to discover and consume music and podcasts.
Spotify in India has pivoted from nearly 70% international music streaming at launch, to more than 70% local music streaming today.In addition, the consumption of music from India has grown globally, with 85% year-on-year growth in 2023 alone.

What Indians listened to on Spotify in the last 5 years

The growth in consumption spans several local languages, with Malayalam being the fastest growing for music consumption worldwide, at growth of over 5300%, followed by Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, and Hindi.
Year after year, Indian artists found listeners in more countries across the globe, with the most exported artists being A.R. Rahman, Alka Yagnik, Anirudh Ravichander, AP Dhillon, and Arijit Singh. In fact, Arijit Singh is the third most followed artist on Spotify, worldwide.
Spotify’s editorial playlists from India have also grown worldwide, led by Punjabi music. Hot Hits Punjabi witnessed the highest increase at 10,000%, while Punjabi 101 grew at 1400%, followed by Hot Hits Hindi and Bollywood Mush.

Spotify’s focus on the podcast industry

Spotify claims that it’s deeply invested in the podcast industry. Through Spotify Podcasters’ Day and regional creator support programs, podcasters learned about the ease of making their own podcasts on Spotify For Podcasters. As a result 2,00,000+ podcasts were created using the platform in 2023.

In terms of consumption, podcast listening in India increased significantly across several genres, from history and education, to mythology and true crime.
History podcasts saw the highest growth in terms of percentage, at over 1000% growth, while mythology and spirituality continued to be the most listened to category, followed by education podcasts, especially those around self-help and personal finance. The kids and family genre saw significant growth, too, as did true crime, and news.
In 2023, four of the top 10 podcasts on Spotify in India were of the mythology / spirituality genre, including the most-streamed podcast of 2023, with the genre growing by >80% through the year.

Spotify’s India roadmap

In 2024 and beyond, Spotify in India will remain focused on contributing to the success of artists locally and globally, especially in the world of film and I-Pop fandom, and enabling podcasters to find the best ways to create and monetise content creation.
It will also continue providing the best opportunities for brands to advertise on the platform to music fans and podcast listeners (Spotify Audience Network), launching new features that make Spotify more personalised, and making Premium more accessible and relevant for India.