Music service rara.com launches new apps, enters 7 new countries

UK-based music streaming service rara.com has announced that it has expanded to reach 27 countries worldwide — including South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Portugal. It also launched Windows 8 and iOS apps to add to its existing web, PC and Android lineup, which all come ad-free and allow users to access millions of songs wherever they are.

Its pricing is competitive enough to challenge other recent entrants into the market, like Simfy Africa, the music service which launched in South Africa in August, although they have different subscription strategies.

A Simfy subscription costs R60 (US$6.89) per month (with discounts for three, six and 12 month memberships) against rara.com’s basic R33.99 (US$3.90) fee for web-only listening, which is reduced to R6.99 (US$0.80) for the first three months.

Mobile and web subscriptions are a bit pricier at R13.99 (US$1.61) for the first three months, and R68.99 (US$7.94) after that. But rara.com’s mobile lineup is missing a BlackBerry app — which may prove a barrier to adoption when it is the most popular smartphone in the country.

rara.com hopes to take the fight to the likes of Spotify, Pandora and Simfy by further announcing that it has reached a deal with Lenovo to preload the app on its Windows 8 tablets, convertible PCs and Android devices.

Nick Massey, CEO of rara.com, said: “I am pleased to announce today that rara.com has made a significant step-forward in the execution of its roll-out strategy and can now be enjoyed in more places, on more devices, with more music and with more partners.

rara.com claims to give users “the music you feel like listening to without you having to know the name of every track you want to play”.

“Our expert team of musicologists hand-curate rara.com’s channels and playlists bringing you music for every mood,” said Massey. “Available today on web, Windows 8, iPhone, iPad and Android, rara.com’s beautiful user interface makes it easier to play the music you love wherever you are, whenever you want, with no annoying adverts.”

The announcement of the Lenovo partnership will help in spreading rara.com’s services, with Lenovo reported to be on the way to taking over from HP as the world’s largest computer maker.

On the partnership with rara.com, Deepa Kumar, Lenovo’s director of world-wide marketing, software ecosystem and cloud solutions, said: “Our collaboration with rara.com will give our customers a great new way to explore and enjoy music on our innovative devices, whether it’s on an all-in-one desktop at home or on one of our convertible PCs switching between work and play. With easy-to-use music apps rara.com makes accessing music simple.”

This article by Tefo Mohapi originally appeared on HumanIPO and was published with permission. Additional reporting by Memeburn.