The leading streaming music service for Bollywood tunes, Dhingana today launched its first subscription service for iOS, Dhingana Gold. Its also the second part of its monetization model. The Gold subscription will include premium features like ad-free service, access to streaming music in high definition and sync downloads upto two devices. The subscribers can even access music offline. It costs around $1.99 and is available as an in-app purchase for free iOS apps in Dhingana.
The music service was launched in 2007 and it took the first step towards monetization in August 2012, with the launch of its advertising program. Until October 2012, it had 15 million visitors, out of which 40% were from outside India. Also, at that time, ad sales made up about 70% to 80% of Dhingana’s revenue, with the rest coming from subscription services.
The streaming music service has its offices in Pune in India and Sunnyvale in California. It had raised $7 million in Series B funding last October in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, in partnership with Helion Venture Partners and Inventus Capital Partners.
In an email to the media, Dhingana CEO Rohit Bhatia wrote : “We have embarked on a three-pronged strategy for monetization at Dhingana. The first being advertising on the mobile and Web platforms, the second is in-app Gold subscription on iOS and the third will be subscription on Android devices with mobile operator billing.”
“Our users have been requesting for the ability to download songs and enjoy music without ads for some time now. We carefully crafted our Gold subscription service to meet our users’ demand while at the same time giving them a premium music experience like none other,” added Dhingana co-founder and COO Swapnil Snehal.