On-demand streaming services of the Spotify kind will account for a third of consumers’ global digital music spending by 2015, research from US analyst firm Gartner predicted earlier this week. Recent impressive growth seen by the likes of Spotify, MOG, Deezer and Rdio will continue. Meanwhile Pandora-style interactive radio services will likely see user-base decline, and a la carte services like iTunes will see only modest growth, most of it coming from the Middle East, Latin American and Africa. Or at least that’s what the stat monkeys reckon.
Certainly it seems that the subscription-based ‘access’ model for digital music is finally gaining momentum after ten years of predictions that it would, though most subscription services are still niche products in the wider scheme of things, and there is other research to suggest those streaming services which require less interaction from the user, possibly linked in with a more traditional a la carte download sell-through, may actually be more suitable for the mainstream consumer, rather than total-control all-you-can eat services like Spotify.
Two things are helping the streaming services gain momentum.
First, the recent changes at Facebook, allowing music services to provide recommendations and, in some cases, free previews via the social network’s platform, linking back to their subscription services. A blog post from Team Facebook this week claimed that since they provided new integration opportunities for digital content services back in September, Spotify has added well over four million new users, MOG has seen 246% growth, Deezer is adding more than 10,000 users per day and Rdio has seen a 30-fold increase in new sign-ups. So, probably worth it for Spotify to accept all that flack from existing users about its extreme closeness to the Facebook massive.
The other thing aiding the growth of streaming music services just now is alliances between said digital content providers and ISPs and tel cos, which bundle a music platform’s subscription services in with their net-access and phone packages. For Spotify, arguably the most important alliance to date has been with Swedish tel co Telia, a partnership which was renewed for another two years this week. The phone firm will continue to offer Spotify’s premium service with its phone, TV and net packages.
Sections: Digital | Tags: Facebook, Gartner, Spotify
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