VIPUL VIJ
More Smart
Speakers In
India Is Good
News For Music
Streaming
Services
Up until the launch of the Google Home in November
2016, Amazon ruled the roost with its line of Echo smart
speakers. With the Google Assistant-powered Google
Home smart speaker making its way to the market, the
competition spiced up. Then, a year and a half later Apple
entered the fore with HomePod. Three of the biggest
tech companies now have their own smart speakers
battling it out in different price ranges. While these
smart speakers have been a huge hit in the western
market, the Indian market is just getting started with the
whole “smart devices in my house” phenomenon. Apart
from companies launching their products late in India,
another huge reason has been music streaming outlets.
Only recently have we seen so many music streaming
services gaining popularity and that is mainly due to
the internet now being cheaper and more accessible.
Abroad, the Google Home and Amazon Echo support
streaming from services like Google Play Music, Amazon
Prime Music, Spotify, Pandora etc. The Apple HomePod,
which has not been launched in India yet, only supports
streaming from Apple Music. Now, when I say streaming,
I mean asking your speaker to play a certain song from
a certain music streaming app, and not just picking up
your phone and using the smart speaker as a regular
Bluetooth speaker. The whole idea of spending those extra
bucks on a smart speaker is to be a part of this futuristic
setup where your voice is something’s command.
In India, apart from Google Play Music, Saavn and Gaana
are two very popular music streaming services. Amazon
has recently launched the Prime Music in India and with
all its bells and whistles, it is missing a lot of indie titles.
The Amazon Echo line of speakers were launched in India
back in October 2017 and Google has recently launched the
Google Home Mini and Google Home at a price very similar
to their Echo counterparts. Now, apart from playing music,
these smart speakers do a lot of other things like control
your smart appliances, smart lighting and tell you weather
and whatnot. But, at the end of the day, the are speakers and
need to be able to play the music a user likes.
The rise of smart speakers’ popularity
in India means that users would want to
listen to music by just asking their new
assistant. In turn, users are likely to test
out the streaming services supported by
their smart speakers in order to find the
one that suits them the most. With services
like Saavn, Gaana offering free streaming
services albeit, lots of advertisements, a
lot of users would incline towards them
in order to get the best out of their smart
speakers. Google Play Music and Prime
Music are paid services hence, they will
only attract users who cannot stand ads
and are ready to pay for their music. A
majority of Indians, right now, are not
ready to do that. However, with more
smart speakers making their way into
the Indian market and our homes,
it is only going to get better for the
music streaming services in India.
26
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com