For streaming services to make it big in India, it needs to target Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, looking beyond the metropolitan cities is the thing. Because of this, they are going to generate new customers from ever-increasing internet consumption.

Over the years, consumers have created a massive impact on the consumption patterns of Indian DSPs. The share of regional Indian language music is growing like wildfire. Gaana for example, the section grew 26 times from 2017-2020 and now stands at 35% of overall listenership. On YouTube, the percentage is even higher. Haryanvi Smash’s “52 Gaj ka Daman” is flashing most of the time on video charts for India.

The music companies at the lead like Saregama and Sony see the expansion to regional music catalogs to be a wise strategy. Even Universal Music has got into it by launching Bhojpuri and Haryanvi Labels under the VYRL Originals brand last month. Keeping a watch on the significance of this addition in the market, promotional clips for the launch single “Jeetega Mera India” featured an assembly of the Bhojpuri Film and Music industry’s top stars lip-syncing to the tune. But the interesting news is the latest Hindi track of 2021 composed by Payal Dev’s “Baarish Ban Jana”. The singer Stebin Ben’s verses have been replaced by Bhojpuri vocalist Pawan Singh.

If this goes big, it will create a stir in the industry where Universal and other Indian labels will start producing versions of the same song to aim at their target audiences in India with its diverse linguistic terrain.