Why India Matters to Spotify, and Why it May Not Deliver

There are two key reasons for such weak uptake to date:

1. Music plays a different role in India:Bollywood and devotional are two of the most widely listened to music genres, neither of which are mainstays of subscription services, nor streaming music consumption in general.
2. Income levels are low:the average per capita income is $553 a month, with the luxury of a music subscription far out of reach for most Indians, other than urban elites. Spotify’s $1.80 price point in India may sound cheap, but relative to average income, it is 9.3 times more expensive than $9.99 is in the US. So, Spotify would need to be priced at $0.19 to be the same relative affordability as in the US, which coincidentally is the price for its day pass.

Music Industry Blog

Warner Music and Spotify have been involved in a rather unseemly and very public spat this week over Spotify’s India launch. I’ll leave for someone else, the discussions of the potential implications of a blanket license for songwriter rights in India for an on-demand streaming service. Suffice to say, the words ‘can of worms’ come to mind. Instead, I am going to focus on why India matters so much to Spotify.

The next one billion, perhaps…

Spotify’s Daniel Ek has made much of addressing the next one billion internet users as part of Spotify’s long-term opportunity. Given the fact that China is effectively off the table for now and that sub-Saharan Africa is probably a generation away from being a major streaming market, India is the key component of that next one billion.

Europe and North America accounted for 69% of Spotify’s subscriber growth in 2018. While this…

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Amazon Is Now The 3rd Biggest Music Subscription Service

(…) Amazon’s achievement is even more impressive than it first appears. Amazon’s music streaming adoption is concentrated among 4 of its Amazon Prime markets: US, Japan, Germany and UK. In these markets 35% of Amazon Prime subscribers are Amazon Prime Music or Amazon Prime Music Unlimited users.

Music Industry Blog

At MIDiA we have long argued that Amazon is the dark horse of streaming music. That horse is not looking so dark anymore. We’ve been tracking weekly usage of streaming music apps on a quarterly basis since 2016 and we’ve seen Amazon growing strongly quarter upon quarter. To the extent that Amazon Prime Music is now the 2^nd most widely used streaming music app, 2^nd only to Spotify which benefits from a large installed base of free users to boost its numbers. So, in terms of pure subscription services, Amazon has the largest installed base of weekly active users.

But it’s not just in terms of active users that Amazon is making such headway. It is racking up subscribers too. Based on conversations with rights holders and other industry executives we can confirm that Amazon is now the 3^rd largest subscription service. Amazon has around 16 million…

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R.I.P., Chris Roberts! (Das waren noch Texte: „Ich heiße Karl-Heinz / Und komme aus Mainz / Mein Hobby ist Love!“)

Er reichte nicht an Udo Jürgens heran (und nicht mal an Gunter Gabriel). Aber ich muss gestehen, dass es mal eine (sehr frühe!) Phase in meinem Leben gab, als ich Chris Roberts (R.I.P.) mochte. Ich höre gerade wieder in sein Schaffenswerk hinein und stieß auf diesen Gaga-Klassiker:

Ich heiße Karl-Heinz
Und komme aus Mainz
Doch weil das heut nicht gefragt ist
Bin ich jetzt der Bill
Aus Blueberry Hill
Mein Hobby ist Love!

Better goes it not.

My Spotify Top Songs of 2016 Playlist

My Spotify Top Songs of 2016 playlist is a nice mix of funk, soul, a little country and some surprises. Enjoy!

R.I.P., Maurice White – let’s pay tribute with a collective playlist on Spotify!

Maurice White performing with Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Ahoy Rotterdam; 1982 (Photo: Chris Hakkens / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

I was saddened to read the following news earlier tonight:

Maurice White always was particularly close to my heart because he was both a musician’s musician and managed to achieve pop hits. I think I hated „Boogie Wonderland“ when it first came out, but it grew on me. Especially after reading the great story behind it which songwriter Allee Willis made me aware of on Facebook (check the comments section). 😉

I started to compile a Spotify playlist with my favorite Maurice White songs right after hearing the bad news. So far, it contains 4 hours 28 minutes of great funk, soul and jazz (use it in shuffle mode). Artists include (in alphabetical order) Barbra Streisand, Billy Stewart, Brian Culbertson, Deniece Williams, Earth Wind & Fire, El DeBarge, The Emotions, Fontella Bass, James Ingram, Ramsey Lewis, Ramsey Lewis Trio, The Salty Peppers, The Tubes:

I configured the playlist to be a collaborative effort. Feel free to add your personal favorites on Spotify. If you don’t have a Spotify account, post your music links (YouTube & Co.) in the comments section of this blog entry. And please retweet/repost this tribute in your social media circles!