We’re getting close to the fourth quarter of this year, and Spotify is doing remarkably well. They set out to have a strong year, including cornering the market in podcasts, and Forbes reports, “As a technology business, Spotify is doing a lot of things right. It is building scale, new business models based in data analytics, and a valuable brand.”
Things are still building, and there’s certainly more streaming wars to come in the future with other companies, but with Spotify cornering the market in podcasts, it could help the music business grow even bigger overall.
The Current Figures
As the Verve reports, Spotify’s podcast audience has nearly doubled within the space of a year, which is a remarkable jump. Rolling Stone also tells us that Spotify has about 232 million people using the popular streaming service every month, and this is a 29% jump from last year. At the same time Spotify’s paying customer base has gone up from 100 million to 108 million, so it’s the good news / bad news routine.
The company said in a statement, “The good news is that the shortfall was execution-related, rather than softness in the business, and we expect to make up the lost ground before year end.”
Not only was Spotify crowing about building their podcast business, but Rolling Stone adds that the company “also told investors that it’s currently working on renewing deals with its four major record label partners (Sony, Warner, Universal, and indie rights agency Merlin).”
Spotify With Your AT&T Plan
As the news spread of Spofity’s growth, a hot newsflash also hit that you can get Spotify Premium as part of your AT&T deal. As Mitch Farber, the VP of customer marketing at AT&T told USA Today, “We’re always looking for different options. They don’t have just one content option, they can choose from a variety of options and we want to make sure they have a choice within the music category.”
And once you get Spotify, there’s so much to choose from. You have 50 million tracks, literally billions of playlists, podcasts, and so much more.
Here and Now
Spotify is coming up on twelve years in business. As Daniel Ek, the company’s founder, told NPR, “Based on radio industry data, we believe it is a safe assumption that, over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content. This means the potential to grow much faster with more original programming – and to differentiate Spotify by playing to what makes us unique – all with the goal of becoming the world’s number one audio platform.”
As the company has stressed, they’re not leaving music behind, and there’s hope that by branching out into a lot of different areas it can help their music service grow. Spotify has already made tremendous growth in just a year, and it will be fascinating to see how they can grow over the next several years. If it helps the industry grow bigger and stronger overall, all the better.
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