Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has agreed to buy out music streaming platform Saavn and merge it with its own digital music service JioMusic to form India’s largest music streamer.
The $104 million in cash and remainder in stock deal for Saavn will value the combined streaming entity at about US $1 bn with RIL holding roughly three quarters of the merged entity.
Reliance plans to invest up to $100 million of which $20 million will be invested up front to enable ‘growth and expansion of the platform into one of the largest streaming services in the world’, the company announced. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
JioMusic has been India’s fastest growing music streaming app for over 60 consecutive weeks. It has sourced content from all the major Indian and international labels with over 16 million tracks across 20 languages. The large content library, customer experience functionalities and support for multiple devices has enabled the rapid growth of the JioMusic platform. Saavn is the only streaming service to make Top Grossing App charts in multiple markets, including India, US, UK, Canada, UAE and Singapore, among others.
The deal will combine the streaming media expertise of Saavn with the connectivity and digital presence of Jio. With a potential market of over 1 billion users in India and globally, the combined entity plans to invest aggressively to accelerate further growth.
The combined platform will also build on Saavn’s award-winning Original Programming, Artist Originals (AO), which has re-defined the development, marketing and distribution of original audio content. AO has delivered some of the top records in India and South Asia including Zack Knight and Jasmin Walia’s Bom Diggy. Saavn is the first streaming company to produce, distribute and license original music with independent artists, driving Saavn’s AO records to achieve #1 across streaming and download charts.
About Saavn
Founded in 2007, Saavn is one of South Asia’s leading digital music streaming services and is currently accessed across the globe offering 36 million tracks in 15 languages. The company has 900+ label partnerships including Universal, Sony, T-Series, Tips, YRF, Saregama, Eros and Warner Music.
In 2016, Saavn expanded its content offering into Saavn Original Programming, a range of original, non-music audio programs that range from Bollywood to comedy and storytelling to cricket. In early 2017, Saavn introduced Artist Originals, an original music program releasing and marketing tracks and albums by South Asian artists, songwriters and producers from around the world.
