With music streaming services now well and truly booming as an industry, earning over $1 billion dollars worldwide, many are looking to grow and capitalise on some of that appealing market share, particularly here in Australia.
One of the first music streaming services to launch in the now saturated Australian market, Rara has struggled to take hold of consumers with the same wild success enjoyed by services such as Spotify. However this is set to change, with Rara’s CEO Nick Massey vowing “aggressive growth” from the company as they move forward.
Massy told theMusic last week the company “believe[s] we’ve made a significant step forward here.” Amongst the improvements announced were improved functionality across a wider range of devices, including a redesigned Android app, and integration with the swiftly approaching Windows 8, as well as an injection of 8 million songs into the already expansive library, bringing the overall total up to 18 million tracks.
Rara also plans to expands into several new international markets, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Portugal, promising to roll out its refined service and expanded features worldwide.
Since January of this year, the Australian music streaming market has continued to become increasingly saturated amongst services such as Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, MOG, and the recently announced service from Microsoft, entitled Xbox Music, which plans an all-in-one streaming, subscription and download service across the Xbox 360, PC ,and Windows Phone.
It’s hard to believe that Australia was one of the last territories for streaming services to capitalise upon under the crush of these services that are continuously springing up.
Massey addressed this issue observing that “Australia seemed to be singled out by a lot of people,” he said. “It seems that the Australian market has characteristics that a lot of people favour.”
However the CEO promised differentiation from other services, underscoring Rara’s appeal to the casual listener.
Describing the service as “A little less tech savvy and little less hardcore from a music perspective,” Massey hopes consumers will “benefit from the service’s simple interface, lack of ads and hand-crafted playlists. They don’t want to search for music, they want it brought to them.”
But is this the best strategy for the floundering service to gain foothold? The primary benefit of music streaming services over traditional distribution channels such as the radio is in fact the endless customisation and choice involved.
With Spotify currently claiming its stake as king of the market, helping Mumford & Sons on their way to having the most successful debut week of the year, charting over 8 million streams of Babel in its debut week, the question remains whether theres’ room in the market for another growing streaming service.
Furthermore, will those who simply want music “brought to them” be urged to make the switch? It seems as though only time will tell.
