Spotify announces deal with T-Series for 1,60,000 Indian songs to users worldwide

**Spotify** , a music streaming platform and **T-Series** , film and music company in India (which is battling with PewDiePie for the top channel spot on YouTube) have announced a tie-up where-in Spotify customers will be able to access to T-Series’ entire catalogue of Indian music, including regional, Bollywood and songs. According to a report by LiveMint, the entire range of content has been made available 15 January onwards. The catalogue has more than 1,60,000 songs and is currently available to Spotify listeners. The Indian music streaming industry has been dominated by the likes of **Gaana** , **Apple Music** , Saavn , Google Music and more. While there has been **no presence** of Spotify, in India, the collaboration with T-Series is a step towards its official entry into the country. [caption id=“attachment_4938771” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Representational Image[/caption] “Today’s deal with T-Series significantly strengthens our Indian music catalogue, bringing Bollywood to more than 200 million Spotify users worldwide,” said Paul Smith, director, head of international licensing at Spotify, according to the report. In March last year, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, had confirmed that Spotify will come to India. “We are working on launching in some of the biggest markets in the world, including India, Russia and Africa which has a very rich musical culture,” **he said** . Spotify had also **leased** land in Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai and hired 300 people to set up an office in India.

Spotify’s local competition

To make its mark in the industry in India can be tough for Spotify. Gaana recently received a $115 million funding from China’s Tencent and Times Internet, also Saavn and JioMusic merger was a $1 billion deal. Besides these, Apple Music and Google Music are backed by the respective tech giants. It will be interesting to see how Spotify is able to tackle these hurdles. According to a report by The Variety, the company had faced similar challenges in Indonesia and Africa but launched in those territories anyway. Disclaimer: JioSaavn is owned by Reliance Industries which owns Network 18, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2