Guvera Indonesia Still Plans to Offer Ad-Supported Service

After a soft launch in October 2013, Australia's music streaming service Guvera has finally launched in Indonesia. With mobile-oriented company Skybee as its local operational partner along with the Trikomsel group within its network, Guvera is set to make a major splash in the Indonesian music scene.

As we reported earlier, unlike in Australia where Guvera offers an ad-supported service, in Indonesia it is a paid service in which subscribers can choose between several subscription periods ranging from from month to month to yearly propositions. Currently payment is limited to two methods, credit card and Doku Wallet, but it will be expanded to include other forms in the future.

Skybee CEO Pontus Sonnerstedt said in an interview with DailySocial and repeated during the launch that the ad-supported model may one day be introduced to Indonesia but not just yet. Michael Wallis-Brown, Guvera Indonesia's chief commercial officer, said on Tuesday that Guvera has a range of patents involving advertising and music matching which form the foundation of Guvera's service in Australia, so the company does plan to fully take advantage of this asset in its service anywhere in the world, but in Indonesia, it was necessary to launch with a paid service.

According to Wallis-Brown, Guvera had pioneered the ad-funded model for music streaming services in Australia and the company will "drive that kind of business model forward". Before Guvera can implement that in Indonesia however, Wallis-Brown said it needs to be able to show to local advertisers that Indonesian music listeners present a sufficient engagement level for the investment to be worthwhile.

If Guvera was to target the majority of Indonesian consumers, it's not going to be able to do so with a fully paid model, so it's counting on the full experience that the service presents to convince the early adopters to pick up and pay for subscriptions before introducing other options.

The company has plans to make several more major announcements during the first half of the year and aims to establish a stronghold in Indonesia ahead of the oncoming competing services. The service is available through apps for Android and iOS devices as well as through (unfortunately) a Flash-based website for desktop and notebook computers.

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