Saavn, India’s largest digital music streaming service, has announced the addition of 80,000 English language tracks for India of Warner Music and EMI. With this addition from the two famous labels, Saavn has increased its catalog from 1.1 million songs to nearly 2 million.
As per the statement issued by the company, the new content deals with Warner and EMI make Saavn the only music streaming service in India to offer content from all the major Western labels, including Sony and Universal. Music lovers in India can now seamlessly stream tracks by everyone from The Grateful Dead to Madonna to LCD Soundsystem.
Saavn has also introduced Rishi Malhotra as the company’s new CEO, while founding CEO Vinodh Bhat shifts his focus to strategy, partnerships, advertising sales and talent acquisition as President of the company.
“India continues to be the largest music listening population in the world, and we’ll continue to invest in bringing the best music streaming experience to our users. Adding Warner and EMI to our catalog is another major milestone,” Rishi Malhotra said. “Language and country aside, music lovers want the best music, and they want it to work beautifully on their smartphones. We’re streaming everything from Coldplay to Led Zeppelin along with our unmatched catalog of Indian music. We want to be the first stop for music.”
As Saavn approaches new milestones, co-founders Vinodh Bhat, Rishi Malhotra, Anurag Gupta (CTO), and Paramdeep Singh, who continues to serve as Executive Chairman, have decided to rearrange the company’s executive leadership structure. Bhat will take on a new role as President and Chief Strategy Officer, while Malhotra – formerly President – is now the CEO.
“We have built Saavn together for almost half a decade, and we’ve always made the best decisions for the company. As we shift into a more product-focused phase of our growth, Vin and I made some strategic management changes. I’m humbled and honored to take on the CEO position. We have a talented team around the globe, and we’re fiercely focused on building a great music streaming business for this very exciting market,” Malhotra said.
In the coming months, the company claims to be rolling out a suite of new consumer-facing products and partnerships aimed at increasing visibility and exploring new market opportunities with the 1 billion-plus Indian mobile users around the world.
