The Swedish music streaming company has really started to shine in the past couple of years, and now it’s looking to expand into uncharted territory by showing its video sharing capabilities.
YouTube has been around one year longer than Spotify, but that doesn’t mean that the latter couldn’t pose a threat to Google’s video sharing service. Apple’s rumored Beats Music was supposed to be the Swedish company’s main target this summer, but now it looks that it’s looking to fight on multiple fronts at once. As diving right into a new industry would have been risky, the music streaming startup has made some preparations by establishing some strategic partnerships.
“Never put all your eggs in one basket,” is an expression that applies to business more than one would think. Sure, Spotify has millions of users (more precisely 45 million ad-supported users and 15 million subscription users), and during the past quarter alone has generated great revenues, but it has yet to make a profit. One could say that the music streaming industry is getting quite crowded, with Jay Z’s Tidal and Apple’s Beats Music breathing in Spotify’s neck, so jumping into a new bandwagon would be the next logical step, even though there are plenty of veterans when it comes to video sharing, too.
YouTube currently has a market share in the US of 73 percent, so Spotify will have to put on the big boy pants, if it really wants to represent a challenge. On the other hand, the Swedish company might want to focus on some sort of niche that hasn’t yet been exploited by the others.
The Wall Street Journal claims we won’t have to wait that long to see what Spotify has in store for us. In fact, its new video sharing service might be up as early as this month, and then we’ll have to wait and see if their new product has what it takes to survive in this cruel, cruel world.
Competition can only be good for the customers, provided that the competitors stay alive long enough to make an impact. On the other hand, if Spotify decides to create a video sharing service just to complement its music streaming one, things might not look so good for the music industry, which has already been crippled by such services.
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