{"id":192192,"date":"2024-01-30T17:28:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T17:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=192192"},"modified":"2024-01-30T17:37:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T17:37:37","slug":"with-india-in-the-running-to-overtake-the-us-as-the-biggest-music-streaming-market-by-volume-believe-swoops-for-local-powerhouse-catalog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/with-india-in-the-running-to-overtake-the-us-as-the-biggest-music-streaming-market-by-volume-believe-swoops-for-local-powerhouse-catalog\/","title":{"rendered":"With India in the running to overtake the US as the biggest music streaming market (by volume), Believe swoops for local ‘powerhouse’ catalog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Luminate, in its Year End Music Report, reported<\/a> that\u00a0India<\/strong>\u00a0saw the biggest YoY\u00a0increase\u00a0in total annual on-demand music streams of any nation last year: Its 2023 total stream haul was up by\u00a0nearly half a trillion plays<\/strong>\u00a0(+463.7 billion)<\/strong>\u00a0vs. 2022.<\/p>\n

The US, by contrast, saw a YoY increase of just\u00a0184.0 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As noted by MBW, if a similar level of streaming volume occurs in these two nations in 2024, India will run the USA close<\/strong>\u00a0as the world\u2019s biggest music streaming nation in terms of total on-demand play volume this year.<\/p>\n

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Now, following the publication of those stats highlighting the growth of India’s music streaming market, Believe just acquired what it says is a “Punjabi powerhouse” catalog from India-based White Hill Music.<\/p>\n

Believe says that the deal is the result of a long-term partnership between Believe and White Hill Music, a prominent music and film production studio based in India.<\/p>\n

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With this deal, Believe acquires WHM’s catalog, including songs from what it says are “active top and established artists” from Northern India, including Maninder Buttar, Gurnam Bhullar, Ninja, Nimrat Khaira, R Nait, Shivjot, Akhil, Happy Raikoti.<\/p>\n

Believe also acquires WHM’s existing YouTube channel, which has a 23.4 million<\/strong> subscriber base and will be used, according to Believe, to promote the back-catalog and the new artists signed with Believe Artist Services.<\/p>\n

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Believe has has a presence in India since 2013.<\/p>\n

The company expanded its positioning in the market via the acquisition of Venus Music<\/a> in 2019 (renamed Ishtar in 2021), claimed to be one of the largest catalogs of original Bollywood soundtracks in Hindi.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Believe also acquired a controlling stake in Think Music<\/a>, an independent company for original soundtracks in Tamil language.<\/p>\n

Believe says it has been a “key driver of the digitalization” of WHM’s catalog since 2017 by “supporting the growth of its roster across digital platforms”.<\/p>\n

The company also says that it has signed multiple artists to its premium offering Believe Artist Services who have some of their top releases in the WHM catalog.<\/p>\n

Among them are Happy Raikoti, one of the top lyricists in Punjabi music, and Punjab-based singer-songwriter Maninder Buttar, a prominent figure in India\u2019s pop scene whose top hit Sakhiyaan<\/em>\u00a0cumulates over 600 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n\n

Vivek Raina, Managing Director of Believe India, said: \u201cPunjabi music is not only the second largest Indian genre in terms of market share in India, but it is one of the most popular Indian genres internationally, with artists like Maninder Buttar or Gurnam Bhullar reaching audiences all around the world thanks to the vast Indian diaspora.”<\/p>\n

Vivek Raina, Believe India<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vivek Raina, Managing Director of Believe India, said: \u201cPunjabi music is not only the second largest Indian genre in terms of market share in India, but it is one of the most popular Indian genres internationally, with artists like Maninder Buttar or Gurnam Bhullar reaching audiences all around the world thanks to the vast Indian diaspora.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s been a massive honor to accompany the growth and digitalization of White Hill Music\u2019s fantastic roster and catalogue since 2017 and I\u2019m now thrilled to see them join the Believe family for this new page of our common history!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Believe has also acquired WHM’s YouTube channel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":192194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}