In the US, it’s safe to say that most of us take music streaming for granted. Between Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, SoundCloud, hell, even Deezer and YouTube Music, the world is literally at our finger tips. The same can’t be said for much of the rest of the world.
Earlier this month, Spotify expanded their global reach by opening up streaming to 13 countries in the Middle East and North Africa markets (read here). Now, according to a report from Bloomberg, the streaming service has plans to launch in India in early 2019.
However, there are still major hurdles to overcome. As the report states, even though T-Series, a major record holder in the country, has confirmed its partnership with the company, other streaming services in India are pushing back. Gaana, Saavn, which merged with JioMusic earlier this year, and Airtel’s streaming service Wynk all already have a stake in the country, as do other American services like Apple Music, Google Play and Amazon Prime Music. 
Even then, YouTube provides a seemingly endless supply of streamable music for absolutely no cost, and it’s going to be hard to convince Indian citizens to begin paying for yet another service.
Still, the service has been making major in-roads in India and the possibility of a launch in 2019, even if it’s not early in the year, is very real.
