Brand of the Day: Spotify
Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the company making headlines for the day and explain five elements you need to know about what has happened for them to be in the news.
Today we feature Spotify, a music streaming service which faces increasing competition, though won’t go down without a fight.
1) The brand
Founded in Sweden, Spotify is a music streaming service that allows users to listen to music based on genre, album, or artist. Premium users, who pay a monthly fee of $10, receive their music ad-free and can download songs for offline listening. It currently has 60 million subscribers, with 15 million being paid.
2) The competitors
Spotify’s original competitor was Pandora, a fairly similar service. However, recent months have brought more players to the game. Most notable, is Tidal, which is owned by Jay-Z. Tidal is a paid-for service that gained a lot of momentum when stepping on the scene – especially when Taylor Swift left the Spotify to join Tidal. However, it appears that another, even bigger streaming service has arrived and Spotify, Pandora, and Tidal are all nervous.
3) The big competitor
Earlier this week, Apple announced the launch of Apple Music, its very own streaming service. Apple music will feature music streaming, playlists, a 24-hour radio station, and offline listening. The service will also be free for basic service and $10 a month for premium and Android users.
4) The investors
While the large new competitor is indimdating, Spotify isn’t afraid to fight back. Spotify is bracing for the impact of Apple music’s launch by closing a $526m funding round. Though initially just seeking $400m, the increased funding - $115m of it from Sweden’s Telia Sonera – proves that even in the highly competitive market, many still believe in Spotify.
5) The future
Aside from its recent introduction of video, Spotify will pool its resources with Telia Sonera, who say they will help the service create a plant to better “media distribution, customer insights, data analytics and advertising.” While its still unclear who will prevail in the race to be the best streaming service, it seems like there just isn’t room for everybody.