[2] Launched in December 2011[3] by British company rara Media Group Limited, the service featured an initial music catalogue of approximately 10 million tracks.
rara was available on web via PC and Mac and also via apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android and Windows 8 PCs and tablets.
[citation needed] rara was available in 32 countries: US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Africa.
[12] Located in London, England, rara was spun out of digital music service provider Omnifone prior to launch in December 2011.
The service was run by parent company rara Media Group Limited with its back end technology platform powered by Omnifone.
[15] The rara.com web streaming service and rara Android mobile app was launched on 13 December 2011 in 16 countries[3] across the US, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, with 10 million tracks from all major labels[16] and a global partnership with HP.
[22] On 23 October 2012 rara launched apps for iOS and Windows 8 devices and announced music licensing deals with independent distributors Merlin, The Orchard, INgrooves Fontana, Believe Digital, VidZone Digital Media and an expanded global licensed catalogue to 18 million tracks.
rara.com also announced it had added 7 new countries; Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa and Portugal, increasing rara.com's territory reach to 27 markets.
[24] On 21 May 2013 rara announced an international partnership with BMW to provide Europe's first in-car music streaming service.