Spotify To Expand In The US, Plans Mobile Services

Swedish free online music streaming website is planning to launch a mobile version of the service and enter the lucrative US market.

In an interview with the BBC, Daniel Ek, Spotify's founder said that the company wanted to be everywhere and not limited to one device; portability, he added, is an important aspect as is interoperability with other devices.

He also said Spotify customers will need to fork out money to get the service into their pockets, the clearest indication that the startup will be trying to rev up its revenues.

Spotify's most popular feature - by far - is its free music application, only available on Windows for now, which allows subscribers to listen to several millions of tracks for free, on the provision that they listen to adverts every 15 minutes or so.

The company is also working on an application for the iPhone as well although it will interesting to see whether (a) Apple will allow the app to join the App store given that it will compete with Apple's iTunes (b) whether mobile phone carriers will allow vast amounts of music to be streamed.

The US Launch is schedule to happen at the end of this year or beginning of 2010 while the mobile version of Spotify is set to be launched before the end of 2009.

According to the BBC, Spotify is also on the verge of announcing a partnership with music recommendation website, Last.fm, which is a perfect example of co-opetition.

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Our Comments

Spotify is by far the most promising desktop-based music streaming service. It is intuitive, offers a sufficiently wide range of music and most importantly, does not cost a dime. Moving to the mobile realm however will be another proposition altogether. Nokia already has Comes With Music which will be rolled out on Orange soon. This, combined with the fact that many phone networks are very strict regarding streaming music, could make Spotify's life on the move very difficult.

Related Links

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