The Waze partnership allows Waze app users to view directions to destinations within the Spotify app and access their Spotify playlists through the Waze app. Spotify also announced that the third season of WNYC Studios’ 2 Dope Queens podcast would premiere with a two-week exclusivity period on the service on 21 March 2017. The integration also enabled Spotify within the SXSW GO app to help users discover and explore artists performing at the conference. In January 2015, Sony announced PlayStation Music, a new music service with Spotify as its exclusive partner. In November 2021, Spotify acquired audiobook company Findaway, including its publishing imprint OrangeSky Audio.
Users can add tracks to a “Collection” section of the app, rather than adding them to a specific playlist. In April 2012, Spotify introduced a “Spotify Play Button”, an embeddable music player that can be added to blogs, websites, or social media profiles, that lets visitors listen to a specific song, playlist, or album without leaving the page. In November 2011, Spotify introduced a Spotify Apps service that made it possible for third-party developers to design applications that could be hosted within the Spotify computer software. In Spotify’s apps, music can be browsed or searched for via various parameters, such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Offline Music listening is possible on watchOS and more recently added to Google’s WearOS for those with premium subscriptions.
- The company said users would be able to login into the main Spotify app with their Stations account and transfer their stations into Spotify.
- In 2008, just after launch, the company made a loss of 31.8 million Swedish kronor (US$4.4 million).
- The company reported that the tier conditions may change before its full launch.
- In April 2018, Spotify began to allow Free users to listen on-demand to whatever songs they want for an unlimited number of times, as long as the song is on one of the user’s 15 personalized discovery playlists.
- Spotify intended to use MightyTV to improve its advertising efforts on the free tier of service.
- The feature was rolled out to a small number of US-based artists by invitation only.
- PlayStation Music incorporates the Spotify service into Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles, and Sony Xperia mobile devices.
In December 2013, CEO Daniel Ek announced that Android and iOS smartphone users with the free service tier could listen to music in Shuffle mode, a feature in which users can stream music by specific artists and playlists without being able to pick which songs to hear. Later that month, Spotify also acquired MightyTV, an app connected to television streaming services, including Netflix and HBO Go, that recommends content to users. The company also introduced “Spotify Running”, a feature aimed at improving music while running with music matched to running tempo, and announced that podcasts and videos (“entertainment, news and clips”) would be coming to Spotify, along with “Spotify Originals” content.
In response to the allegations about unfair compensation, Spotify claims that it is benefitting the industry by migrating users away from unauthorized copying and less monetized platforms to its free service tier, and then downgrades that service until they upgrade to paid accounts. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights-holders, who will then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Despite the extensive global coverage, the service remains unavailable in several countries and territories, including Afghanistan, British Indian Ocean Territory, Central African Republic, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Yemen. Among them is an increased lack of non-online social spaces, an increased lack of privacy from strangers, and a source of unbridled expression particularly with its media-related podcasts. Spotify users can also ‘jam’ sessions where users can create and contribute live music playing sessions with their Spotify friends. In April 2014, Spotify moved away from the peer-to-peer (P2P) system they had used to distribute music to users.
Additional features include the ability to get “verified” status with a blue checkmark on an artist’s profile, receiving artist support from Spotify, customising the profile page with photos and promoting a certain song as their “pick”. In April 2017, the panel was upgraded to leave beta status, renamed as “Spotify for Artists”, and opened to all artists and managers. In March 2009, Spotify began offering music downloads in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. The company was, according to TechCrunch, planning to launch on the stock market in 2017, but in 2017 it was seen as planning on doing the IPO in 2018 to “build up a better balance sheet and work on shifting its business model to improve its margins”. In April 2015, Spotify began another round of fundraising, with a report from The Wall Street Journal stating it was seeking $400 million (equivalent to $515,700,000 in 2024), which would value the company at $8.4 billion (equivalent to $10,831,000,000 in 2024). In February 2010, Spotify received a small investment from Founders Fund, where board member Sean Parker was recruited to assist Spotify in “winning the labels over in the world’s largest music market”.
- Two more partnerships were announced in March; one with WNYC Studios, and one with Waze.
- The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports.
- On 5 February 2020, Spotify announced its intent to acquire Bill Simmons’ sports and pop culture blog and podcast network The Ringer for an undisclosed amount.
- In 2024, Spotify Wrapped, which has become a key marketing strategy for the company, was criticised for appearing to rely on AI-generated content and producing uninteresting insights.
- Also the same month, Spotify bought the exclusive rights to the Call Her Daddy podcast.
- The company was, according to TechCrunch, planning to launch on the stock market in 2017, but in 2017 it was seen as planning on doing the IPO in 2018 to “build up a better balance sheet and work on shifting its business model to improve its margins”.
In January 2016, Spotify and music annotation service Genius formed a partnership, bringing annotation information from Genius into infocards presented while songs are playing in Spotify. In December 2015, Spotify debuted Spotify Wrapped, a program that creates playlists based on each user’s most listened-to songs from the year. The applications provided features such as synchronised lyrics, music reviews, and song recommendations.
Spotify: Music and Podcasts
In April 2017, they acquired Mediachain, a blockchain startup that had been developing a decentralized database system for managing attribution, and other metadata for media. In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific’s team would lead an advanced analytics unit within the company, focused on developing data services. On 3 July 2020, cybersecurity firm VPNMentor discovered a database containing 380 million individual records, including the logins and passwords of Spotify users. It was announced later in April that this type of agreement would be extended to indie artists frostybet casino signed to the Merlin Network agency. New reports in April confirmed that Spotify and Universal Music Group had reached an agreement to allow artists part of Universal to limit their new album releases to the Premium service tier for a maximum of two weeks.
Stations by Spotify
The subscription costs $0.99 and is supposed to be a combination of the free and premium tiers. On September 10, 2025, it was announced that Lossless would be rolling out to Premium listeners gradually to more than 50 markets through October. Spotify introduced a Family subscription in October 2014, which allows up to 5 family members to have a premium subscription.
App Functionality
User growth continued, reaching 20 million total active users, including five million paying customers globally and one million paying customers in the United States, in December 2012. In February 2017, Spotify announced the expansion of its United States operations in Lower Manhattan, New York City, at 4 World Trade Center, adding approximately 1,000 new jobs and retaining 832 existing positions. Later that same year, in March, Spotify removed all limits on the free service tier indefinitely, including mobile devices. In January 2012, the free trial periods began to expire, limiting users to ten hours of streaming each month and five plays per song. Spotify launched in the United States in July 2011, and offered a six-month, ad-supported trial period, during which new users could listen to an unlimited amount of music for free. Ek first had the idea for Spotify around 2002 when peer-to-peer music service Napster shut down and another illegal site Kazaa became popular.
In November 2015, Spotify introduced a “Fan Insights” panel in limited beta form, letting artists and managers access data on monthly listeners, geographical data, demographic information, music preferences and more. Users could purchase tracks from Spotify, which partnered with 7digital to incorporate the feature. In order to balance the expense of licensing audiobooks and music together, the company started a new “bundle” royalty rate to songwriters. That September, Spotify announced that it had paid a total of over $5 billion to the music industry. In May 2016, Spotify announced “Sponsored Playlists”, a monetisation opportunity in which brands can specify the audiences they have in mind, with Spotify matching the marketer with suitable music in a playlist.
Platform
This approach is not intended to raise fresh capital, but to let investors get their returns. The Financial Times reported in March 2017 that, as part of its efforts to renegotiate new licensing deals with music labels, Spotify and major record labels had agreed that Spotify would restrict some newly released albums to its Premium tier, with Spotify receiving a reduction in royalty fees to do so. In countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Spotify registered a fall in users in late February, but it has seen a recovery. On 19 June 2018, XXXTentacion’s hit single “Sad!” broke Swift’s single-day streaming record, amassing 10.4 million streams the day after he was fatally shot in Florida. A month later, Spotify announced that “Lean On” by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ was its most-streamed song of all time with over 525 million streams worldwide. Registrations surged following the release of the mobile service, leading Spotify to halt registration for the free service in September, returning the UK to an invitation-only policy.
In November 2021, Spotify hid the “shuffle” button for albums following a request by singer Adele, arguing that tracks in albums are supposed to be played back in the order specified by the artist to “tell a story”. In September 2020, Spotify, Epic, and other companies founded The Coalition for App Fairness, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores. In 2019, under iOS 13, it became possible to play Spotify music using Siri commands. Additionally, Apple stated that they have attempted to work with Spotify to integrate the service better with Apple’s products, such as Siri and Apple Watch. Two days later, Apple responded, stating that the claim was misleading rhetoric and that Spotify wanted benefits of a free app without being a free app.
While the streaming music industry in general faces the same critique about inadequate payments, Spotify, being the leading service, faces particular scrutiny due to its free service tier, allowing users to listen to music for free, though with advertisements between tracks. In May 2017, Spotify introduced Spotify Codes for its mobile apps, a way for users to share specific artists, tracks, playlists or albums with other people. Today, royalties on all streaming services, including Spotify are paid on a per user basis not per stream as this allows the artists who users listen to the most to receive the largest percentage of the payouts.
Spotify operates under a freemium business model (basic services are free, while additional features are offered via paid subscriptions). Though all three applications support real-time stem separation and mixing, this functionality is disabled on music streamed from Spotify. In December 2024, Harper’s Magazine released a report stating that Spotify was padding out playlists with ghost artists created by production companies in order to minimise royalty costs and increase profits. In May 2022, Spotify began testing a feature that would allow select artists to promote their NFTs via their profiles. However, after talking it out and renewing the contracts between the two, Spotify later announced that they had reached an agreement with Kakao Entertainment, allowing their content to be available once again on the platform across the globe. On 1 March 2021, Spotify confirmed that its platform would no longer have access to music from artists represented by Kakao Entertainment.
If a song is “loved”, a custom radio channel will be created based on it, and when there are at least 15 of these songs, a “My Favourites” channel is unlocked. At launch, the skipping feature was not featured to “reinforce the feel of radio”, but it was quietly added later and with no limits. In October 2017, Spotify launched “Rise”, a program aimed at promoting emerging artists.