Spotify
Universal Music’s Spotify Stock Could Be Worth $2B
If it still holds the shares, their current value is $1.45 billion — which would yield a profit of nearly $1.4 billion if sold at Friday’s share price. UMG and the other major labels, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, each took equity as part of their licensing deals that allowed Spotify to launch in the U.S. in 2011. As of Dec. 31, UMG maintained a larger equity stake in Spotify than any of its competitors. Sony Music sold half its 5.707% stake for $768 million following Spotify’s IPO in April 2018, leaving it 5.082 million shares a 2.85% stake at the time — a percentage that would have been diluted since then. (Based on Warner Music, meanwhile, confirmed in August 2018 that it sold its full 4% stake for $504 million. In March 2018 UMG committed to givin...
Over 180 Musicians Sign Open Letter Criticizing Spotify for Controversial Voice Recognition Technology
In a letter to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, a group of concerned musicians have expressed concern over one of the streaming giant’s technological patents. The patent in question allows for the “identification of taste attributes from an audio signal.” In other words, the patent would allow Spotify to develop a speech-recognition function which would shape how the platform recommends music to its users. Spotify filed the patent in 2018, which was later approved by the United States Patent And Trademark Office in January of this year. News of this patent has resurfaced concerns around digital privacy since, in order to function, the speech recognition feature would monitor background noise continuously looking for context clues which may identify the user’s...
PureGym Analyzes Workout and Gym Playlists to Identify Top 50 Workout Tracks
New research from the UK-based company PureGym has aggregated Spotify playlist data and determined the most popular songs to soundtrack a workout. The company analyzed 142,000 unique tracks populating playlists with either “gym” or “workout” included in the title and published a list of the top 50 recurring tracks. It’s no secret that listening to music while working out leads to a happier, and more productive gym experience. “Music is like a legal drug for athletes,” says Costas Karageorghis, a Ph.D. from London’s Brunel University School of Sport and Education. “It can reduce the perception of effort significantly and increase endurance by as much as 15 percent.” Perhaps it’s the heart-pumping cadence of house music that has ...
New Study Reveals Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” As the Most Valuable Song From Sweden
A new study by Australian finance blog S-Money has revealed the most valuable songs on Spotify by country. Some of the usual suspects like Ed Sheeran and Drake are featured of course, taking the cake in the United Kingdom and Canada, respectively. The United States’ most valuable song comes courtesy of Post Malone, whose influential “Rockstar” is the clear-cut winner. Late EDM legend Avicii‘s “Wake Me Up” is Sweden’s most-streamed song worldwide, worth well over $6 million from its staggering 1.25 billion streams to date. Alan Walker‘s “Faded” has become Norway’s most popular export, earning the DJ over $6.5 million off of nearly 1.4 billion streams. According to S-Money, who shared additional data with EDM.com, The Cha...
Spotify Stock Drops Over 12% on Softened Listener Forecast
That adjustment followed Spotify’s reported first-quarter monthly active users (MAU) of 356 million, falling on the bottom end of earlier guidance. There was good news too, though. First-quarter subscriptions were at the high end of guidance, and Spotify did not revise its 2021 guidance for subscribers (172 million to 184 million), suggesting it expects the dip to come from “freemium” listeners. Average revenue per month on those free listeners is 0.35 euros ($0.42), compared to subscribers’ 4.07 euros ($4.94) per month. (Subscribers account for about 90% of the company’s total revenue.) That MAU adjustment could have a larger financial impact in the future, as Spotify uses its freemium business model to acquire new subscribers. So, fewer free listeners this year means there will be fewer ...
Spotify Launched a Vaccination Playlist—Here’s Why That’s a Little Weird
Thanks to Spotify, there’s a playlist for everything—even your COVID-19 vaccination. According to a recent blog post published by the streaming giant, Spotify listeners have created more than 7,700 vaccine-related playlists globally in 2021. In the 90 days leading up to the post they noted a 350% increase in fan-generated Spotify playlists specific to COVID-19 inoculation, with many even naming their selections after the manufacturers responsible for the vaccine flowing through their veins. So Spotify launched “Vaccine Songs,” a whimsical playlist “to help soundtrack your own vaccine journey.” With tracks ranging from clever puns (“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar) to low-hanging fruit (“The Cure” by Lady...
Spotify Begins Raising Prices With Family Plans in US, UK
Meanwhile, in the U.K., Student, Duo and Family Plan subscriptions will also see a price hike, up one pound apiece for Student and Duo plans to £5.99/month and £13.99/month, respectively, with Family Plan subscriptions rising £2 to £16.99/month. The raises were first reported by The Verge, which also reported that some other countries in Europe will see Student and Duo plans rise by one euro/month and Family Plans by three euros/month, with increases in Asia and South America as well. “With more than 70 million tracks and 2.2 million podcasts, Spotify continues to innovate and invest in providing our listeners with greater value than ever before, including the best audio content and user experience,” a spokesperson told Billboard in a statement. “We offer a variety of subs...
Spotify Stock Soars 8% Ahead of First-Quarter Earnings
This vote of confidence helps buttress Spotify’s share price, which has lost 26.7% since hitting $387.44 on Feb. 22, valuing the company at $73 billion. That fall was perhaps a sign that investors were too enthusiastic about exclusive podcast deals and that spoken word will help improve Spotify’s margins. Analysts tend to agree that Spotify is the leader in the streaming market, a sentiment CEO Daniel Ek communicated during Spotify’s Feb. 3rd earnings call, calling the shift from linear (one-way) to on-demand (interactive) music a “massive multi-billion user opportunity” accelerated by COVID-19 and that was reachable by “only a handful of companies” in audio. Spotify’s first-quarter numbers probably won’t disappoint, although they might not impress, either. Universal Music Group’s first-qu...
Apple Music Jabs Spotify With Controversial Newsletter: Read the Full Statement
A recent newsletter dispensed by Apple Music has delivered a conspicuous jab at Spotify for the platform’s polarizing payment model. While the newsletter doesn’t directly mention Spotify by name, the parallels are easy to discern. The statement paints a striking picture about how Apple Music handles its payouts to artists and songwriters. One of the major takeaways from Apple Music’s newsletter stems from the company’s assertion that they “do not ask anyone to accept a lower royalty rate in exchange for featuring.” This is a blatant attempt to twist the knife into Spotify’s contentious “Discovery Mode” algorithmic feature, which gives artists the option to have their music boosted by the platform’s a...
Apple Music pays one penny per stream
Engadget Apple Music’s payment rate for artists and labels is fundamentally a penny per stream, according to a letter from the company posted on its artist dashboard and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. That payment rate is higher than Spotify, which has a confusing variable rate scheme that basically tops out at a half-penny per stream. Announcing a penny-per-stream rate is a nice PR win for Apple Music, since it is 1. very simple and 2. Spotify hates talking about its per-stream payments, which the company insists are a misleading figure. Seriously, it just launched an entire website called Loud&Clear last month designed to help artists and fans understand how payments work, and a good chunk of it is devoted to explaining why per-stream rates are not the right thing to focu...
Kitchen Rave: Spotify Data Proves That Despite Uncertain Times, Dance Music Thrived During the Pandemic
This year in numbers has shown that dance music has the ability to meet any moment. A new data-driven blog post by Spotify takes us behind the scenes to showcase the dance music boom happening online, despite uncertainties posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic. There seems to be a new sense of optimism in the air, especially with vaccines in distribution, that life will once again return to normal. January seemed to mark the start of a meteoric trend, as 80,000 Spotify playlists have since been created worldwide with “dance” included in the title. In some areas like the UK, the trend towards dance streaming is accelerating, with a 26% increase in playlists containing “kitchen rave” in the title having been created in the last 90 days alone. Familiar faces are l...
