February 21, 2012 • 2:00 pm 0
Mobile is the value-add that attracts the highest premium in streaming services. According to sources at the US streaming service Rdio, the majority of its subscribers take the top-premium mobile-access plan. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: mobile music, Music subscriptions, Uncategorized, download, mobile music, Music subscriptions, rdio, Spotify
February 3, 2012 • 4:46 pm 2
At the end of last month the music industry once again descended on Cannes for the annual institution that is MIDEM. Opinions from the trade floor and the many conferences and panel sessions left visitors in no doubt that there has been a major shift in opinion from across the music industry that streaming and subscription services have really started to take off. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Music industry, Music subscriptions, Music industry, Music subscriptions, Spotify, STREAMING, universal music
May 18, 2011 • 10:48 am 1
With Google (and a few others) launching digital music locker services, Music & Copyright has updated a previous blog about this subject with a shiny new table (see below). In the latest issue of the newsletter we have a look at the digital locker sector and how all the uncertainty over licensing requirements is damaging an already fragile digital-music sector. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Digital locker, Music industry, Music subscriptions, mp3, Music industry, Music subscriptions
May 4, 2011 • 10:48 am 0
Most mobile music services use pay-per-track and subscription-based pricing models, but some operators have started offering music services bundled with their mobile subscriptions. Full tracks are sometimes thrown in as a “free” extra to motivate people to take out a mobile subscription or data plan or to top up their prepaid credit. An example of the latter is Orange’s Monkey prepaid plan in the UK, in which users get free music for topping up as little as £5 (US$7.75).
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: mobile music, Music industry, Music subscriptions, mobile music, Music industry, Music subscriptions
April 19, 2011 • 9:57 am 3
Spotify is reducing the amount of music that free users of the service can stream, capping it at 10 hours per month. This should not come as a surprise. It is simply part of a “get them hooked, then make them pay” strategy Spotify began when it reduced the free service from unlimited to twenty hours listening a week. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: download, Music industry, Music subscriptions, download, full track, Internet, mp3, Music industry, Music subscriptions, Spotify
March 10, 2011 • 1:42 pm 3
In some ways South Korea’s music industry could be considered unique. It is one of a small number of markets that have reported growth in recorded-music sales, and for several years digital sales have exceeded physical. All of this has been achieved through the government’s emphasis on turning South Korea into the most “wired” country in the world. Virtually all households are connected to a high-speed broadband service, and mobile penetration exceeds 100%, with almost all members of the population able to own a mobile now having one. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Music industry, Music subscriptions, Uncategorized, download, full track, Korea, Music industry, Music subscriptions, STREAMING
February 25, 2011 • 5:04 pm 0
In the latest issue of Music & Copyright we included a special focus on cloud-based music services. It’s no secret that cloud technology offers the music industry enormous potential to reignite the digital sector at a time when the a la carte model of downloading is showing signs of age. Licensing issues have hindered rollouts and it would seem that the big players are waiting for a decision in the MP3tunes.com case before staking their claim. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: download, Music industry, Music subscriptions, The cloud, Uncategorized, Cloud, download, full track, Internet, Music industry, Music subscriptions
February 4, 2011 • 5:11 pm 1
An often repeated conclusion at this year’s MIDEM conference, as well as in subsequent news reports on the state of the music industry, was that digital music services have so far failed. Digital sales are still not offsetting the decline in physical sales, they have not managed to maintain the format replacement cycle and they are not competing with piracy.
It is certainly fair to say that the music industry is having a very rough time and digital is not proving to be the saviour that many thought it would be. But should we really expect any other conclusion? Have digital services failed or have we just set the bar way too high? Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: download, free, Music industry, Music subscriptions, Uncategorized, download, mp3, Music subscriptions, p2p
January 26, 2011 • 4:49 pm 0
MIDEM is now over for another year and representatives from all sectors of the music industry are busy digesting the comings and goings of the event. Some conference themes followed on from where they left off last year, whilst others debated new business models that rose to prominence during 2010. There were numerous cases of the traditional music industry bumping heads with supporters of these new business models. But at a number of conferences and panel sessions, there seemed to be a better understanding of some of the issues and concerns on all sides as well as a greater willingness from most of the participants to go that bit further to get their heads around each other’s issues, which in previous years, had been a source of major division. There were of course still plenty of areas of disagreement but on the whole all parties exchanged handshakes rather than insults. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Collection societies, download, Intellectual property, Music industry, Music subscriptions, download, MIDEM, music, Music subscriptions, royalties
October 18, 2010 • 12:33 pm 1
A research project carried out by Informa Telecoms & Media, publisher of Music & Copyright, and the streaming music service Spotify has concluded that large mobile operators could add millions of euros to their bottom line by partnering with a music streaming service.
Rapid smartphone uptake combined with the recent rise of streaming services like Spotify have for the first time enabled music to make a substantial impact on operator’s market share, ARPU and churn. By partnering exclusively with an existing player rather than building their own service, fast-moving operators can realise these gains quickly while shutting out competitors.
The study is based on real data from the Swedish telecoms operator Telia and Spotify, as well as research from Informa Telecoms & Media and other service providers and operators. Using this data, the study estimates that an operator in Western Europe with 20 million customers could generate revenues of €77.7 million in 2011 alone from partnering with a streaming service. If the leading player in each Western European market did so, they would collectively generate €1.1 billion in 2011, the study found.
One of the authors of the study, Giles Cottle, said that the research shows how a large Western European operator could “generate millions of euros of revenue a year by partnering with a third-party music service – significantly more than they would gain from offering their own service. Add in other benefits, such as network efficiency, brand awareness and increased lifetime customer value, and the potential for such a partnership becomes very clear.”
Adrian Blair, Director of European Business Development at Spotify, added “music download stores which operators launched prolifically over the last 5 years are commodities and had little impact on core business metrics. Streaming services, by contrast, have proved an effective way to differentiate from the competition and win new customers. They have also been used to upsell high-ARPU devices and reduce churn. Over half of Spotify/Telia customers said they were more likely to stick with Telia as a result of the Spotify partnership.”
The study says that Telia’s experience has helped illustrate best practice to other operators wishing to emulate their success. Churn reductions and potential gains in market share and ARPU resulting from mobile music streaming will not materialize without a clear strategy and focused execution. A high-quality streaming product and the right offer (for both operator and consumer) needs to be combined with effective marketing, a motivated sales force and deep billing integration. Simply offering a popular free service, with little thought put into the way the offer is packaged and marketed, will not yield the kind of results the operator will be hoping for. Yet if they get it right, the rewards are potentially lucrative.
The joint research paper is available on October 20th exclusively through the Informa Telecoms & Media Analyst Community Group on LinkedIn (www.informatm.com/linkedin).
Music & Copyright is a fortnightly research service published by Informa Telecoms & Media.
Filed under: download, Music industry, Music subscriptions, download, Internet, isp, mp3, music, Music industry, Music subscriptions, STREAMING
