MUMBAI: It's been 12 months since Spotify launched in India; an exciting year filled with learnings and milestones, as India discovered and listened to audio content. To celebrate our one year journey in India, here are some of the most surprising insights that highlight the growth of streaming in India and what listeners here love tuning into.

THERE’S NO AGE FOR DISCOVERING MUSIC!

While GenZ and millennials drive the most streams on popular music genres - film music, international pop, and Punjabi non-film music, it’s the 35-44-year-old users who listen the most to local music compared to all other audiences

What the 55+ age group Spotify users' are streaming caught our attention too!

Overall: Señorita by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello is the most streamed track across the country for the 55+ age group

Females: A newfound love emerged for K-pop in Telangana with top tracks for this age group and gender being EXO’s tracks, while their West Bengal counterparts’ top tracks featured BLACKPINK’s track Kill This Love

Males: In Telangana, the most streamed track for this audience is Lose You To Love Me by Selena Gomez, while their counterparts in Punjab create an interesting exception (amidst popular Punjabi and Bollywood music) listening to RnB artist Eli Sostre, whose music features in their top tracks

INDIA’S MOOD CONTINUES TO BE ROMANTIC

With the top genres ranging across pop, filmi music, hip-hop, sufi and Indian folk, what unites Indian listeners is still their love for ‘love’ as a mood for music

India’s ‘mushiest’ states include West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar, and Sikkim, where Bollywood Mush features in the top 3 playlists. Seems like love rises in the east!

The only western state is Gujarat, where users listen to sentimental love songs

LANGUAGE PREFERENCES EMERGE CLEARLY ACROSS REGIONS

In Goa, across age groups, Spotify users only listen to international music

For the ‘7 sisters’ of India, Korean features in their top 3 languages for music consumption, indicating the preference for K-pop music in Arunachal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura; in Assam, it’s Punjabi

Meanwhile, in Gujarat, the 25-55+ age group only consumes Bollywood Hindi music

All male listeners in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Telangana only stream local music as their top tracks

Finally, it's time to take a look at some notable milestones we reached (and crossed!) in India:

India ranks highest in the number of 18-24 year old users on Spotify among all Spotify markets

Since launch, Spotify has been streamed in over 2300 cities in the country

Today, there are over 6,400 Indian artists on Spotify for artists

Spotify has now more than doubled its music library of local, curated playlists in India; from 120 at the time of launch, to 350+ today

With podcasts growing in popularity everyday in India, Spotify’s India originals launched in November last year - 22 Yarns With Gaurav Kapur, Bhaskar Bose, and Love Aaj Kal with Aastha and Ankit, feature in the top 5 original podcast charts in India. Other originals part of the list are The Misfits Podcast and Mythology

Thank you for all the love, and cheers to a great year of discovering new favourites. For an overview, you can check the attached infographic (lists the most streamed artists, playlists and podcasts on Spotify) and our For The Record post here. Stream on!