Saavn Pro launched on Android; new India-only subscription service also unveiled

Saavn (South Asian Audio Video Network), a US-based Indian digital music service, has updated its Android app and introduced its premium subscription service Saavn Pro on it. The premium service was launched in March this year exclusively for the iOS platform.

Saavn Pro, available for $3.99 (in US) and Rs 220 a month (in India) is an ad-free service and it allows users to cache and save the songs they like and listen them offline. In Saavn Pro, they can save music up to 3GB. Considering a song on an average could be anywhere between 5MB and 10 MB, 3GB would mean users can store anywhere between 400 and 450 songs for offline listening. Users can sync these songs across five devices. Saavn Pro is also available for a 30-day trial before users begin the subscription. When it was launched earlier this year on iOS, Saavn Pro received around 10,000 sign-ups within the first 48 hours of early interest registration.

The new premium subscription, Saavn Pro Lite, is an India-only service and will cost Android users Rs 110 a month. It is also ad-free but it will let uses cache music only up to 1GB (means approximately 100-150 songs) and that can be synced on only one device.

The new cheaper subscription model will attract another set of audience who are not yet willing to shell out money for Saavn Pro. Among competitors including Gaana.com and Dhingana, Saavn is the first one to roll out a subscription service on Android platform. While Gaana launched its premium service for iOS earlier this year in April, Dhingana unveiled its subscription service more recently. Both the companies have stated that the premium service shall be made available on Android soon.

Founded as BODVOD Networks in 2006, Saavn was set up by Vinodh Bhat, Neal Shenoy and Paramdeep Singh, in a partnership among New York-based parent company 212Media (also founded by the trio), the Indian company Hungama and Schramm Sports & Entertainment. It launched the music service on the social networking site Facebook back in December 2011. Though no latest numbers are available as of now, Saavn claims to have crossed nine million active users and one million daily streams in March 2012.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)