Reliance plans to take its music streaming service JioSaavn public as per filings of the company’s special resolutions. The company has poured in additional funds to augment JioSaavn at a time when the online streaming industry is gaining traction. JioSaavn has issued 5,625 equity shares at a nominal value of ₹1 with a premium of ₹1,20,353.10 per share worth ₹78.94 crores to Reliance Industries, according to RoC filings.
The board of JioSaavn approved the plan for the company to go public. According to the special resolution, the board has proposed to convert the company from Private to Public to achieve overall business objectives and plans. The name of the company will change from Saavn Media Private Limited to Saavn Media Limited. JioSaavn is required to comply with the regulations under section 13, 14 and 18 of the Companies Act along with the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014.
Reliance’s Jio Music and Saavn joined hands in March 2018 to strategically strengthen their footprint in the Indian music streaming market and their combined valuation stood at $1 billion at the time of the merger. Currently, the audio streaming service offers its premium service JioSaavn Pro at ₹99 per month and ₹399 for an annual subscription.
JioSaavn has more than 10 crore monthly active users with audiences across 150 countries. The platform has more than 50 million tracks in 16 regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Bhojpuri among others. The company has partnered with more than 900 labels including Universal, Sony, T-Series, Tips, YRF, Saregama, Eros and Warner Music.
JioSaavn expanded its content genre in 2016 and started offering non-music audio programs including podcasts, comedy, and storytelling. In early 2017, the company introduced Artist Originals, which included original music programming for tracks and albums by South Asian artists, songwriters, and producers from all around the globe.
Before merging with Jio Music, Saavn had already raised ₹700 crores from multiple investors including Tiger Global Management, Liberty Media and Bertelsmann. JioSaavn competes with apps like Spotify, Amazon’s Prime Music, Google’s Youtube Music, and Gaana.
According to the latest figures, there are more than 20 crore people in India listening to music via some streaming app. The latest entrant in the market is Resso, from TikTok owner ByteDance. Resso is experimenting with social interactions within the ints streaming app. India generated $244 million in revenue from music streaming services in 2019-20 which is quite low compared to the United States which generated $4.5 billion in the same year.
