Spotify Product Developments

Investments
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  • Spotify launches a dedicated Merch Hub in its app.
  • Previously, a merch could only be purchased from artist’s profile.
  • With the hub, users can access all the artists merch instead of having to browse from one artist to the other.
  • The hub uses personalized recommendations based on your listening habits to march you with the artist merch.
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According to Music Business Worlwide (MBW), Spotify plans to come up with a new royalty payment model in Q1 2024 that would see migration of USD $1 billion to ‘legitimate’ artists and rightsholders in the next 5 years through the following ways;

  • Introducing a minimum number of streams per year that must be reached by an artist before starting to earn royalties, a move that will demonetize 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool, resulting to diversion of tens of millions of dollars to more popular artists.

    “ In aggregate, these tracks generate royalties that add up to tens of millions of dollars a year, and that number is only growing," a source told MBW. “Next year, without taking this action, Spotify thinks they would have generated around $40 million.”

  • Spotify will fine music distributors for fraudulent activity detected in their tracks.

  • Introducing a minimum length of play time for non-music content that must be reached in order to earn royalties. Currently non-music content earns royalty in every 31 second interval.

    “We’re always evaluating how we can best serve artists, and regularly discuss with partners ways to further platform integrity," Spotify spokesperson said when contacted for a response. “We do not have any news to share at this time.”

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  • Spotify premium users in U.S join those in the U.K and Australia in enjoying the 15-hour free audiobooks listening time per month.
  • Users who exhaust the 15 hours before the month ends can purschase 10 additional hours.
  • The audiobooks include over 70% of bestselling titles such as Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me, Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend , Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
  • Spotify’s survey of 1,000 American adults found that 72% of Gen Z and Millennials listen to audiobooks and 70% of audiobooks listeners are more likely to listen to additional audiobooks after listening to one.
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  • In order to improve discovery and personal recommendations of audiobooks and podcasts, Spotify will use Google Cloud Large Language Models (LLMs) to identify users listening habits.
  • Currently, new podcasts and audiobooks are suggested to users on Spotify’s homescreen and “More like this section” feature, which have not been very reliable.
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  • Spotify users can now save music they hear in TikTok directly to Spotify.

  • Currently, the feature is only available to Spotify free and premium users in the U.K and U.S.

    “No matter where you are, or the moment you’re in, we want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” says Sten Garmark , Vice President, Global Head of Consumer Experience at Spotify. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”

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  • Spotify will launch its podcasts advertising marketplace in five new markets, including Sweden and India.

  • Launched in 2021, Spotify Audience Network, which help podcasters to monetize their content, is available in nine countries such as the United States and Germany.

    “We often hear from our customers that they have been reticent to invest in podcasts because of the lack of audience targeting and challenges reaching podcast listeners at scale,” Brian Berner, global head of advertising sales at Spotify, said.

    “The Spotify Audience Network addresses these two challenges head on.”

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Spotify confirms Music Business Worldwide (MBW) report that said the company will come up with a new royalty payment model that would see migration of $1 billion to the right artists in the next 5 years.

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  • Spotify confirmed to Techcrunch that it’s testing a new feature that enables users to create playlists using AI technology and prompts.

    “We routinely conduct a number of tests. Some of those tests end up paving the path for our broader experience and others serve only as an important learning,” a Spotify spokesperson said. “We don’t have anything further to share at this time.”

  • Techcrunch reported in October that Spotify was testing the feature, citing screenshots of the feature shared by tech veteran Chriss Messina.

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An Instagram post that compared Daylist to astrology was shared more than 100,000 times leading to a 20,000% spike in searches for Daylist on Spotify.

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  • Spotify said the DMA Act will pave way for Superfan Clubs.

    “Thanks to the DMA we’re looking forward to a future of superfan clubs, alternative app stores, and giving creators the ability to safely download Spotify for Artists or Spotify for Podcasters directly from our site—and that’s just the start.”[1]

  • Superfan Clubs has been gaining a following lately, with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group saying they will focus more on it in 2024[2].

  • Superfans are users willing to pay more for anything related to their favourite artists[3].

  • According to Goldman Sachs’s projections, Superfans could account for 20% of total music premium subscribers in 2024 and their total addressable market (TAM) is $4.2 billion [4].

  • Goldman Sachs forecasts that monetization of Superfans could bring in $2 billion in additional revenue to streaming platforms by 2027 and $4 billion by 2030 [4].

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  • Spotify introduces “Share Track Lens”, a new feature that enables users to share songs on Snapchat.

    "The new “Share Track Lens” lets you capture the world around you on camera and easily share a track you’re loving. The lens will overlay the song title, artist name, cover art, and a link to listen to the track on Spotify, " Spotify wrote.