Google Play Music will offer content in regional languages including Hindi, Bengali, and Bhojpuri.
Taking the competition amongst music streaming services in India a notch ahead, Google today announced the launch of its Google Play Music subscription service. It is available across Android, iOS, and web. As an introductory offer, users can avail a discounted subscription for Rs 89/month within the first 45 days of the launch. Google is also offering 30 days free trial to users who wish to test drive the service before paying the monthly subscription.
To clear the air, Google Play Music was launched in India last year; however, it had been limited to select purchases with each song priced at Rs 15 and albums priced at Rs 100 onwards. With the subscription service, Google is essentially offering all the content available on its Google Play Music platform at a single cost. The Google Play Music library boasts over 40 million local and international music, offline playlist feature, and location or activity-based playlists. Here are some of the features of the Google Play Music subscription service and how it works.
To begin with, the Google Play Music service is claimed to consume less data and is accessible across devices that are synced with your Google account. As is the trend with the use of machine learning, the subscription-based service also puts to use Google’s understanding of content to recommend music based on preference, place, and activity.
Talking about the offline and low-data consumption feature; the Google Play Music subscription service lets subscribers to stream music using minimal data and also listen to offline music in cases of poor or no internet connection. ALSO READ: YouTube Go beta app available on Google Play Store in India
Now, what sets apart the Google Play Music subscription service is it is cheaper than Apple Music – which is the most premium music streaming services available right now; priced at Rs 120, and other popular Indian services such as Gaana and Saavn, which also start at Rs 99.
Another advantage with Google’s service is that it is offering free cloud storage, which basically lets you have your own music collection of sorts other than what is already available on Google Play Music. This is essentially the ad-supported free version of the service. You can upload up to 50,000 songs from your collection. Apple also has a student plan priced at Rs 60 per month, and something similar from Google is missing at the moment. ALSO READ: Apple Music app for Android completely overhauled with new UI and lyrics support
One of the features missing in Google Play Music service is that it does not offer family subscription plan which is offered by Apple Music. However, we can hope as the digital music industry in India is looking at robust growth in the next five years, more such features and services will show up.