How India’s music app managed to dominate a highly competitive market
To say that the music streaming market is competitive is an incredible understatement.
Approximately 872 million people worldwide use music streaming services – and the number is expected to grow significantly over the next few years.
In this highly competitive market, one music service, Hungama, has emerged as one of India’s leading digital streaming services.
In 2016, the Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi invested US$25 million USD into Hungama to help them grow their market share in South Asia.
Clearly, their investment paid off – considering that Hungama reported a 48 per cent growth in mobile downloads, netting 60 million active monthly users, last year.
Hungama certainly does not have the same globally-recognized reputation as the big players like iTunes and Spotify, nor do they have the same massive marketing budgets.
So, how were they able to see such spectacular growth, particularly with their mobile users?
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1. Focusing on niches over general markets
Most streaming services seek to service the masses.
They promote the world’s biggest pop stars and carry many of the classic hits that have stood the test of time.
Hungama knew that in order to stand out and really earn a large portion of India’s streaming service market, they had to offer something that was far more unique than what other companies were offering their listeners.
Hungama found their niche in regional music, rather than the mainstream.
In an interview with Money Control, Hungama’s COO Siddhartha Roy said:
“One of the biggest factors that have led to [this] growth is that we have continued to go deeper inside India…we have seen exponential growth in smaller towns and specifically with regional languages. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Bhojpuri – we have seen double-digit and very extensive growth in these markets.”
The majority of users prefer to listen to music in their own language.
Although nearly half of Indians speak Hindi, Money Control reports that other languages make up 48 per cent of total music streams.
Hungama saw the opportunity to capitalize on this competitive advantage, which clearly paid off.
By offering more exclusive music options that resonated with specific regions through language and dialects.
Hungama was able to offer these niche audience segments with unique music options they couldn’t find on other streaming services.
2. Tracking mobile attribution for marketing optimisation
The majority of Hungama’s customers use their mobile devices to access the company’s services.
In order to continue their upward trajectory of growth, Hungama’s marketing team made the smart move of using a mobile attribution system to track which specific ad campaigns were driving in the most conversions.
Marketing attribution is a tricky task, especially for companies that utilize a widely varied marketing mix.
Mobile attribution is even more difficult because the cookies that used to track a customer’s interactions online can be lost – if, say, a customer moves between a mobile web link and a downloaded app.
Hungama already had a large database full of consumer data; so, in order to properly attribute conversions to their respective campaigns.
Hungama combined their raw acquisition data with attribution and marketing analytics software.
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They used deep linking technology to create individual digital fingerprints for each user and track their journeys from initial interaction to final conversion.
Gaining this kind of insight was a major gamechanger for the company. As Siddhartha Roy explained in an interview with attribution analytics provider AppsFlyer:
“Data is crucial in day-to-day decision making and it is important to have access to precise information. We rely heavily on digital campaigns to retain customers…Our key focus is to sustain and scale the Hungama brand through acquisition and retention-based mobile campaigns…all the acquisition-related raw data was pushed to our own BI systems, which assisted us in timely reporting and rapid optimization of our campaigns in real-time. Furthermore, the data helped us visualize the usage trends, which served as a valuable source of information for our marketing teams.”
Armed with attribution data, Hungama’s marketing team is able to optimize their efforts by focusing their attention on the mobile campaigns that are most effective.
3. Giving their customers exactly what they want
Giving target customers what they want is always going to help a business grow; but what makes Hungama’s approach truly unique and successful is their innovative approach to supplying their listeners’ desires, primarily within the mobile CX.
One example of this is the company’s video streaming offerings.
Video has been steadily growing in popularity among consumers, especially when it comes to social media.
In fact, by the end of 2019, it has been estimated that 80 per cent of global online activity will be video streaming.
Hungama capitalized on this trend by including music videos within the app, so users don’t have to use other sites like YouTube to watch them.
Hungama also offers several payment options, with their premium plan including a vast video catalogue, which includes thousands of music videos, regional movies and TV shows, as well as hundreds of thousands of exclusive short-form video shows.
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But Hungama is by no means stopping there.
They plan to focus even more on personalized listening and streaming by upping their game for more customized experiences.
In a statement to Money Control, Siddhartha Roy indicated that listeners can expect even more personalization from Hungama in the near future, with tailored experiences based on each user’s consumption patterns.
Conclusion
Hungama’s growth is showing no signs of slowing down – a feat that is quite remarkable in India’s massive streaming market.
While there are many factors that attribute to Hungama’s success, it is clear to see that their intense focus on the CX (particularly on mobile devices) has helped them secure this major hold on the market.
By capitalizing on niche segments, optimizing their mobile marketing efforts, and giving their audiences the kind of additional services they want, Hungama has been able to connect with their customers in ways that their competitors simply have not.
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