The short answer
JioSaavn and Gaana serve India, Boomplay serves much of Africa, and JOOX serves Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia. None of them takes uploads from artists directly; your distributor delivers to them from the same release. Their audiences are large and their subscription prices low, so each play pays less but reaches listeners the global stores often miss.
Why these stores matter
Most of the growth in streaming now happens outside North America and Western Europe, inside apps rooted in one region: bundled with a phone plan, pre-installed on a handset, paid for through mobile money. A listener in Lagos, Chennai or Bangkok may never open a global service at all. If your release is not delivered to the app they use, your song does not exist for them.
For a Gulf artist this is close to home. Large Indian, Filipino and African communities live across the region and keep the listening habits of home, and a collaboration, a remix that travels on short video, or a wedding track often finds its real audience on these stores.
Who each store reaches
The four stores cover three regions and share three traits: scale, a free or very cheap entry tier, and a catalogue that is heavily local, which makes a well-tagged international release stand out.
- JioSaavn: India and its diaspora; free ad-supported and paid tiers, bundled into the mobile plans of the telecom group that owns it; strongest in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Punjabi catalogues
- Gaana: one of India's older services, now subscription-only with a narrower reach; still on most store lists, so check that it is currently delivered
- Boomplay: the largest service across much of Africa, strongest in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and French-speaking countries; pre-installed on widely sold phones, with ads, mobile-money plans and paid downloads
- JOOX: Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian markets, run by a large Chinese technology group; known for lyrics and karaoke features, with a footprint that has shifted over the years
How delivery works through a distributor
You do not open an account with any of these stores. Each takes catalogue only from distributors and labels that hold a delivery agreement, and your distributor sends your release through the same feed it uses for the global services. In most forms they are part of the default store set or a box you tick; there is no separate upload.
Expect a slower go-live, sometimes a week or more after the release date, because several of them run their own content review, and expect that an artist profile may be created fresh rather than merged. Some stores have an artist portal where you can claim it; others fix it only on a request from your distributor. At Mazufa Records regional stores are part of a standard release on the same terms: no upload fee, no subscription, no per-release fee; the revenue share is set out in your written agreement.
Why the money looks different
Subscription prices in these markets are a fraction of what listeners pay in the United States or Europe, and most listening happens on free, ad-supported tiers. The store collects less per listener, so less reaches you per play. That is the economics of the market, not a fault in your delivery.
The mechanics vary as well. Some stores pay from a shared revenue pool divided by all plays in the period, some pay a fixed minimum per play agreed with your distributor, and some add income from paid downloads. Reporting usually arrives later than from the global stores, often quarterly, and amounts are converted from local currency before they reach your statement. Local taxes or withholding may apply; this varies by country.
- Per-play amounts: smaller than the global stores, by the nature of the market
- Reporting: later, often quarterly, converted from local currency
- Income mix: advertising, subscriptions and, in some stores, downloads
Metadata that helps you there
These stores lean on language and genre to decide where a song appears. Fill the lyric language field honestly, even for a track that mixes Arabic and English; a wrong language hides the song from the listeners most likely to search for it. Choose the genre the store actually files music under, and put a local collaborator in the featured-artist field, not in the title.
Keep your artist name identical to your other stores so profiles can be matched, and deliver the second-script spelling in the localised field where a store supports one. Lyrics, where your distributor can send them, matter more here than almost anywhere, because sing-along features are a main reason people open these apps.
Questions people ask
Does it cost extra to be delivered to these stores?
Through a distributor, usually not; they are delivered from the same release that goes to the global services. What differs is the pace of reporting and the size of each payment, not a fee for the delivery itself.
Why are the amounts from Boomplay or JioSaavn so small?
Because most listening there is free and ad-supported, and paid plans cost far less than in Western markets. Each play earns less, reporting arrives later and amounts are converted from local currency. Give each store two or three reporting periods, then read the countries and play counts before the sum.
Can an Arabic song find listeners in India or Africa?
Yes. Arabic-speaking and Muslim communities, Gulf expatriate families and fans of collaborations all use these apps. The correct lyric language, a matching genre and a collaborator credited in the featured field are what make the song findable there.