Music to your ears: What is Southeast Asia tuning in to?

By e27.sg | e27

A look at the popularity of music streaming services in Europe and Southeast Asia and the difference in consumer consumption habits.

In Europe, when thinking about music apps and streaming services, there are normally a couple that come to mind: Spotify and Deezer. But what about in Southeast Asia? Are the streaming services Europe has fallen in love with as far reaching as they claim to be? Does a particular region have a specific affinity with a type of music app? Let’s see…

Where’s the music coming from?

I wanted to see how popular music streaming services were performing on the iOS market, so I had a look at the top music apps in five European countries and then five Southeast Asian countries to see if the results were markedly different. In Europe, all countries looked at showed, without exception, Spotify and Deezer in the top 10 music apps (with some sprinklings of SoundCloud and Rdio too). Meanwhile, Southeast Asian markets showed SoundCloud as the popular music service – showing up in all countries’ top ten lists. Spotify and Deezer were scarce entrants and were surpassed in Singapore by AMPed – the Singaporean music service.

Interesting find, but what are the reasons?

But what are the reasons for this distinct difference in use of music apps? Well, primarily, the availability of these music streaming services differ. Spotify’s presence is not as widespread as Deezer, ສໍາ​ລັບ​ຕົວ​ຢ່າງ. If we take a look below at which App Stores Spotify is available, it is limited to Europe, ອາ​ເມລິ​ກາ, Australasia, Malaysia and Singapore. This at least explains why Spotify is at least present in Malaysia and Singapore’s top ten and why it is nowhere to be seen in the other markets I looked at. Deezer on the other hand which, by the way, only made 9th place in one market (ປະເທດໄທ) is available to the vast majority of countries.

But let’s look at the release dates of these services in Southeast Asia. Deezer was made available to five countries, ປະເທດໄທ, ອິນ​ໂດ​ເນ​ເຊຍ, ສິງກະໂປ, Malaysia and Philippines in August of 2012 which I suppose hasn’t given it a huge amount of time to become the market leader in these countries…but let’s look at Spotify. It’s only been available in Malaysia and Singapore since April 2013 and it’s already at 4th place in Singapore and 6th place in Malaysia in the top free music apps. This is pretty good going and suggests that Spotify is focused on creating a good quality app, and if that means their service spans less of the globe at first, then so be it. It’s even more impressive considering that the consumption of digital music in Asia is completely different to that of Europe.

A factor that is important when considering why music streaming services don’t seem to have taken off in Southeast Asia as they have done in Europe is piracy and lack of awareness. The digital music market in Asia is different to Europe in the sense that many do not have the means to legally buy music and piracy is fairly rampant in the region. This could be a key factor to why these music streaming services are relatively unpopular in Southeast Asia in comparison to Europe. Many are simply not aware of these services out there.

One app our five Southeast Asian countries were keen to install is SoundCloud. This is a music service which allows users to upload and promote their original music and share it with the world. It’s massively popular – it records over 200 million unique visitors to its site and has around 40 million registered users (but many still use the service without an account). SoundCloud is present in the top ten lists of all the Southeast Asian countries I looked at: second in Indonesia’s free music apps, 7th in top grossing music apps in Thailand, 4th in free music apps in Singapore…ok, so you get the point, it is doing really well! In Europe, SoundCloud also fared well in the ranks. Unsurprisingly, in its homeland of Germany, SoundCloud came 6th in the top free music apps and shows its face in the top ten in France and the UK too.

Are there differences in general music apps between the two regions?

So where does this leave us? Well, perhaps you noticed what I saw – it seems like the Southeast Asian market is pretty hot on apps where you can create your own music content. ສະນັ້ນ, without further ado, I propose a quick dash through the popular music apps in Europe and Southeast Asia. I have a feeling we’ll see a pattern emerging…

Whilst Europe doesn’t mind creativity when it comes to music apps – they love a bit of GarageBand ແລະ Ultimate Guitar Tabs – they’re more focused on streaming the music they love from the kind of services I mentioned above. In Southeast Asia on the other hand, it is fascinating to see the number of karaoke, guitar tabs and music making apps in the top grossing music apps. Karaoke first originated in Japan and soon spread to South and East Asia in the 1980s, it is therefore no surprise that karaoke music applications seem to be doing well in this region with apps such as Star Maker and Sing! Karaoke amongst the top most popular music apps.

I think it’s pretty interesting to see how music is consumed in these two areas. There are obvious differences in preference and this is obvious in the types of apps Southeast Asians are choosing. I wonder what the future holds for the digital music industry. We’ve got new names coming in all the time – Google Music, iTunes Radio and Twitter Music all hoping for slice of the delicious music pie. These are all big name contenders and internationally well-known, meaning they could be a threat to the current favourites such as Spotify and Deezer.

ຜູ້ຈັດຮູບພາບ: Listening to music/Shutterstock

ນີ Music to your ears: What is Southeast Asia tuning in to? ທີ່ທໍາອິດໃນ E27.