India's music-streaming market is positioning bundles with telecom, OTT, banking and other services as a key strategy to convert reach into paying users. According to a recent report by EY and the Indian Music Industry (IMI), e-commerce bundling and tiered offerings can significantly drive growth for the sector, with ARPU at ₹1 per day. As reported by Mint, India had 14 million paid music subscriptions as of December 2025, representing a fraction of the more than 200 million paid video-streaming subscriptions in the country. The microdrama market in India shows even more dramatic growth, with platforms growing 91% in a year and over 450 million downloads, though paid conversion has not grown at the same pace as user acquisition.
Rami Jamal, head of partnerships at Spotify, emphasized that while bundles help reach new listeners across India, growing reach and growing a paying market aren't the same thing. According to Mint, Jamal stated that listeners pay when they feel a real difference - when the experience connects them more deeply to the artists they love. A JioSaavn spokesperson noted that bundling entertainment apps with telecom and internet services has become increasingly popular, providing value to consumers by giving them access to premium services at affordable prices. The spokesperson added that bundled services are a great way for customers to try new services, with plans to launch new bundle packs combining Jio's 5G network and high-speed internet with JioSaavn's audio catalogue.
Entertainment industry experts believe audio apps have not fully tapped into bundling opportunities due to music rights economics. As reported by Mint, video OTT platforms primarily own their content, meaning every new user can bring additional revenue without corresponding content costs. For audio platforms, scaling bundles requires reworking music-licensing economics. Rohith Sobti, curator and founder of The Shakti Collective, noted that bundling removes friction by attaching music to services consumers already subscribe to, but emphasized that bundling is only an acquisition tool and brings users into the ecosystem without automatically creating long-term value or monetization. The challenge extends to microdramas, where ARPU is $15 versus $35 for OTT, with different monetisation architectures requiring coins, episode unlocks, advertising, bundles and subscriptions across various audience cohorts.
The challenge extends beyond distribution to consumer perception of music value. According to Ashish Pherwani, M&E sector leader at EY India, India has always known music as a free product whether on radio, TV or YouTube. As reported by Mint, Pherwani stated that the fact that music now has value requires a big mindset change, with bundling and pricing working when there is perceived value to music. The dominance of YouTube further weakens the premium proposition as users already have free access to an enormous music catalogue, making it difficult for streaming platforms to justify separate payments for music services. In microdramas, 90% of viewing is estimated to be solo compared with approximately 43% for long-form OTT, but the category still lacks a widely adopted independent currency for attention measurement, with many advertisers keeping investments within experimentation budgets rather than core media plans.
