Micromax invests in TIL owned music streaming platform Gaana
Homegrown phone manufacturing major Micromax has invested an undisclosed amount in music broadcast and streaming platform Gaana.com. With this strategic investment, Micromax will preinstall Gaana across its range of smartphones. Importantly, this is the first round of external funding secured by Gaana.
The investment will also allow Micromax users to avail unlimited downloads without advertisement and access over 10 million songs with ad-supported streaming.
Earlier, the Gurgaon-based company had made similar strategic investments in travel platform Ixigo, HealthifyMe, MiMedia, Scandid and others to develop relevant deployments of software that leverage its consumer footprint.
"Gaana is becoming a household brand for music, and in partnership with Micromax, we will strengthen our footprint, helping us reach our goal of 100 million Indian users, listening to millions of songs via Gaana. Micromax is the most popular smartphone company in India, passionate about providing its consumers with the best experiences. It's a great opportunity to bring our service to their users," said, Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet.
The Times Internet-incubated, Gaana, claims to have over 20 million active users and over 700 percent annual growth in consumption and over 10 million songs in more than 45 languages, as well as 45 radio stations. Micromax claims to ship over 3.5 million mobile phones on a monthly basis.
Talking about the strategic investment in Gaana, Rahul Sharma, Co-founder of Micromax Informatics Ltd, said, “We at Micromax have been consistently integrating the best in class services to our smartphones and are trying to build an ecosystem of connected devices in a connected world. India is a music loving country and the youth today are hooked on music for at least two-three hours a day through their smartphones. Gaana brings the widest selection of songs across genres and we are proud to announce our strategic partnership with them to provide our neo users an uninterrupted access to latest tunes and transcend them into the world of music.”
YourStory’s take
Over the past few months, Micromax has been very active in investing in mobile-centric startups to ramp up its stake in overall mobile and app ecosystem. Right from healthcare to price comparison, travel, fitness, and music -- Micromax is making investments in companies which are complementing its smartphone segment.
The investment will help Gaana to reach a wider audience in the country, especially in smaller cities where Micromax has a strong presence. Micromax manufactures around 42 million phones every year. Ganna competes with Saavan and Hungama among a few others.
Such investments (Gaana, Scandid etc.) also highlight Micromax's focus towards providing best in class services to its buyers by strategically partnering with startups to provide customized offerings to its users.
