Spotify: a year's development
To build upon its great start and be a long-term success Spotify needs to do three things:
- Break through the 15-20 million user bar like Pandora did
- Convert roughly 5 percent of its user base to premium offerings
- Build a sustainable ad business that helps shoulder the cost of its free users
Juniper's Mark Mulligan wrote the above of online music Service Spotify last year, August 2009 to be precise.
So where is the service now?
[According to data from March 2010: so true figures may be higher] It has amassed a user base of 7 million with 3.5% paying for premium service.
Not bad progress at all but I too expected better for a proposition which is essentially free music using an extensive catelogue and easy user experience.
Seems to me, from a quick straw poll of friends/family in UK, that many of the target audience simply don't know about.
As Mulligan alluded in the piece the above extract is taken from, it won't kill iTunes but it offers a complimentary service. Enforcing this message could make a big difference.
This a huge topic but I hope Spotify 'makes it' as I love the service and the concept.
