Apple Music subscription reduced in India in response to Spotify and YouTube Music launches

Apple has cut the cost of its Apple Music subscription in India, making the streaming service cheaper than the recently-launched rivals Spotify and YouTube Music to potential cash-strapped customers in the emerging market.

Apple Music launched in India almost four years ago, bringing the catalog of over 50 million songs to the country. Originally the subscription rates for Apple Music put the service at 120 rupees ($1.73) per month for individuals, 60 rupees ($0.87) for students, and 190 rupees ($2.75) for families, and the pricing has stayed the same throughout its life.

According to the Indian Express, Apple has updated its subscription tiers to make them cheaper. Students now have to pay only 49 rupees ($0.71) per month for the service, with the Individual plan at 99 rupees ($1.43) per month, and the Family plan at149 rupees ($2.15) per month.

The timing of the price drops is likely due to the availability of Spotify and YouTube Music in the market within the last few weeks, with Apple keen to undercut the competition. Spotify still offers an ad-supported tier, just as with other markets, but its plan for a single user costs 119 rupees per month, effectively the same as Apple Music's old rate.

Both Spotify and Apple Music are cheaper than YouTube Premium, which charges 129 rupees ($1.86) per month for one user.

The price cut of Apple Music follows after another of Apple's corrections, with reports of Indian resellers lowering the cost of the iPhone XR surfacing on Monday. The 64-gigabyte iPhone XR dropped to 59,900 rupees ($875), a reduction of 22 percent.

10 Comments

tipoo 14 Years · 1122 comments

About 5 years ago

Damn, 99INR is only 1.91 Canadian dollars, if that's sustainable and profitable in India it just goes to show how high services margins are in the western world.

franklinjackcon 10 Years · 612 comments

tipoo said:

Damn, 99INR is only 1.91 Canadian dollars, if that's sustainable and profitable in India it just goes to show how high services margins are in the western world.

It's hard to believe it's sustainable in the short term. It reminds me of Bill Gates talking about rampant piracy in China, "As long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. " If Apple can get a few tens or even hundreds of millions subscribing in India for basically nothing, sooner or later they'll get a return.

sree 8 Years · 153 comments

tipoo said:

Damn, 99INR is only 1.91 Canadian dollars, if that's sustainable and profitable in India it just goes to show how high services margins are in the western world.

Its not the profitability. Its the lack of local content.

While apple music (and spotify etc.) might have good international content (i.e. western music) they have very little local content. Especially old local content. A few years down the line maybe they will build up their library enough but as of now there is very little and the growth in content is very slow. I had subscribed to the service for a year and then decided to unsubscribe.

(For those who don't know, there are over 50 fully active languages in india, with about a dozen languages having a full-fledged music and movie industries.)

So, local language content is extremely important and many times determines the success of a service. There are many alternative music services like Saavn or Gaana which provide the desired content.

beowulfschmidt 12 Years · 2361 comments

tipoo said:

Damn, 99INR is only 1.91 Canadian dollars, if that's sustainable and profitable in India it just goes to show how high services margins are in the western world.

No kidding. I wonder if they're getting less variety or something in return for paying less than one sixth what we in the US pay.