Guvera plans aggressive international expansion

Guvera plans aggressive international expansion

Ad-funded music service Guvera announced reaching the 2m users milestone in India just months after launching in the country, whilst its acquisition of Blinkbox Music in the UK from Tesco signals a forthcoming expansion into Europe. 

In November 2014 it expanded into Russia and Ukraine and it is also available in the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and Venezuela. 

Guvera told Music Week that it wants to be in 20 new markets by June and up to 100 by the end of the year.     

The company is bullish about its prospects but faces an uphill struggle first of all because of the fiercely competitive European market where it will be difficult for a new entrant to make a splash and second because of the question marks around the ad-funded model, which requires a huge amount of funding and provides questionable returns. 

The company’s aggressive expansion timetable would lead us to belive that it has closed a new round of funding but, if the company did raise more cash recently, it kept it quiet since the latest disclosed round was in 2010 for $20 million. 

 

(Andrea Leonelli)