TEN MILLION PEOPLE IN TUNE WITH GUVERA

GOLD Coast music-streaming service Guvera has grown its user base almost tenfold over the past five and a half months.

The Robina-headquartered group today announced it reached a milestone of 10 million users, up from 1.5 million in October last year.  This equates to more than 35,000 music lovers joining the service each day over the past 22 weeks.

CEO Darren Herft says the growth is testament to the success of Guvera's non-disruptive ad-funded model, which allows users to discover and play expert curated music.

The ad-funded model works by integrating the user experience and preferences with branded channels. 

Music is ultimately paid for by the advertiser and music labels are paid a streaming fee so that artists receive royalties.  Advertisers include online fashion retailer The Iconic and travel company Contiki.

"Branded channels are a great example of how users are able to engage with brands in a less disruptive manner," says Herft.

"Guvera is putting the consumer in charge of the advertising experience. Moreover, advertisers know that they are paying for ads that consumers want.

"We believe that Guvera is a platform for advertisers and brands to connect with a significant database of users, made possible with the help of Guvera's innovative content-targeting algorithm."

The announcement of 10 million users follows the company's recent acquisition of Blinkbox Music in the UK from supermarket giant Tesco, which brought with it 2.5 million registered users.

In addition, India has proved a successful emerging market, growing to three million users after launching in November 2014. 

"We're thrilled to see Guvera's global community growing daily and we hope to bring more music lovers on board as we enter new markets in 2015," says Herft.

"Guvera will continue to focus on its 'programmed globally, tuned locally' approach, ensuring that we are delivering the most relevant and diverse local and international content, playlists and artists to our users."

Guvera has also recently signed a partnership with multinational technology PC company Lenovo which sees the app pre-loaded onto all Lenovo smartphone and tablets across 160 markets around the globe.

Guvera says there are several more major global partnerships in negotiation which will further propel Guvera onto the global stage.

Earlier this month, Guvera debuted its newest innovation, Fradio, which allows users to host their own radio broadcasts using the millions of tracks on the Guvera music library. Friends and fans can then listen to and interact with the broadcast in real time through live talk-back, comments and track requests.