Spotify Hits 20 Million Monthly Users and Could be on Track for 8 Million Paid Users 1 Year From Now

When Facebook flicked the switch on stage two of its Socially Optimized Web Strategy at f8 it was clear that the social network had just found an effective means of embedding itself further into all of our digital lives, by making itself the universal content dashboard.  What wasn’t so clear at that time was quite how significant an impact it would have on music services, Spotify in particular.

Today Spotify hit 20 million monthly users on its Facebook app, having added 500,000 new users in less than two weeks,  from the 3^rd to the 15^th of May (see figure 1).

Spotify has added 1.5 million users since the end of April, representing a growth rate of 8%.  That compares to 0.5 million new users and 4% growth for the entire month of May in 2011.  Facebook integration, coupled with launching in the US has turbo charged Spotify’s growth trajectory.

And yet, as impressive as Spotify’s total user growth is, it is only par when compared with other streaming music services.  Looking at the growth in total users by month since launch date of service (see figure 2) Spotify is close to the average for streaming music services.

In fact it is only above Pandora and lags imeem  and Last.FM, both of whom were once the future too.  In favour of Spotify, services like Pandora first launched in the US – a much larger addressable audience – and have unlimited free tiers.  Against Spotify, the market is now much more mature in terms of technology and consume readiness. Measuring against current user levels, 20 million users is also a long way south of Pandora’s 100 million users.  3 million paying subscribers is also far off Apple’s 80 million iTunes customers, though the comparison isn’t necessarily apples-to-apples (pun fully intended).

All of this is not to say that Spotify’s growth rate should be questioned but instead to put it into appropriate historical context, namely that Spotify is performing at the rate that streaming music services should perform in their first 40 months.  Not more, not less.

What is different about Spotify, is the need to amass new free users to drive premium subscriptions (see figure 3).

Although Spotify officially quotes 10 million registered users (the same number it first reported in December 2010) it is more instructive to look at paid conversion as a share of the 20 million monthly users reported by Facebook.  (Bear in mind that Spotify first quoted 10 million users back in December 2010, long before the US launch or Facebook integration).

Even with the 20 million users measure, 17% stands out as a highly successful conversion ratio for Spotify, an affirmation of the Freemium model.  Not only that, the conversion rate has grown strongly month upon month.  Spotify has been getting progressively better at converting free users to paid.  The conversion from active users to paid is even more impressive: 27%.

However it is also clear that the acceleration in new user acquisition enabled by Facebook integration is beginning to dent the conversion rate (see figure 4).

This is though just a natural byproduct of rapidly expanding the funnel: these new free users need to have time to get hooked on the service and then get migrated over to paid. The rate of new users is so much higher than previously that it will take time for Spotify’s overall metrics to balance out.  But that should indeed happen.  And if it does , then it augurs well for positive premium growth down the line.

If Spotify converts between 17% and 27% of each of the new daily 45,454 users, it will add between  0.7 and  1.1 million new paid users a quarter, or between 4.8 and 4.5 million a year.  Assuming a 27% conversion rate of these new active users, Spotify could have just over 8 million paying subscribers by May 2013 and 36 million total users.  The lower case, and probably more realistic, 17% conversion rate scenario would result in 6.3 million paying subscribers.

Although the rates and ratios will fluctuate over the coming 12 months, these numbers give us a useful directional sense of the long term impact of Facebook on Spotify’s current growth metrics.  There remains a big question over the scale of the actual addressable market, i.e. is there a demand ceiling that Spotify will hit somewhere south of the 5 million paying subscribers mark?  But ceiling or no ceiling, and low or high conversion scenario, there is one inescapable conclusion, namely that Facebook integration is transforming Spotify’s business, fast.

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These charts and the above analysis feature in a brand new Music Industry Blog free report: ‘ When 2+2=Free: Making Streaming Music Add Up’.  The report is free of charge to Music Industry Blog subscribers.  To receive your copy simply subscribe to email updates of this blog using the box to the upper left of this page.

The Digital Music Year That Was: 2011 in Review and 2012 Predictions

Following the disappointment of 2010, 2011 was always going to need to pack more punch.  In some ways it did, and other ways it continued to underwhelm. On balance though the stage is set for an exciting 2012.

There were certainly lots of twists and turns in 2011, including: disquiet among the artist community regarding digital pay-outs, the passing of Steve Jobs, Nokia’s return to digital music,  EMI’s API play, and of course Universal Music’s acquisition of EMI.  Here are some of the 2011 developments that have most far reaching implications:

• The year of the ecosystems. With the launch of Facebook’s content dashboard, Android Music, the Amazon Fire (a name not designed to win over eco-warriors),  Apple’s iTunes Match and Spotify’s developer platform there was a surge in the number of competing ecosystem plays in the digital music arena.  Despite the risk of consumer confusion, some of these are exciting foundations for a new generation of music experiences.
• Cash for cache.  The ownership versus access debate raged fully in 2011, spurred by the rise of streaming services.  Although we are in an unprecedented period of transition, ownership and access will coexist for many years yet, and tactics such as charging users for cached-streams blur the lines between streams and downloads, and in turn between rental and ownership. (The analogy becomes less like renting a movie and more like renting a flat.)
• Subscriptions finally hit momentum.  Though the likes of rdio and MOG haven’t yet generated big user numbers Spotify certainly has, and Rhapsody’s acquisition of Napster saw the two grandaddys of the space consolidate.  Spotify hit 2.5 million paying users, Rhapsody 800,000 and Sony Music Unlimited 800,000.
• New services started coming to market.  After a year or so of relative inactivity in the digital music service space, 2011 saw the arrival of a raft of new players including Blackberry’s BBM Music, Android Music, Muve Music , and Rara.  The momentum looks set to continue in 2012 with further new entrants such as Beyond Oblivion and psonar.
• Total revenues still shrank.  By the end of 2011 the European and North American music markets will have shrunk by 7.8% to $13.5bn, with digital growing by 8% to reach $5 billion.  The mirror image growth rates illustrate the persistent problem of CD sales tanking too quickly to allow digital to pick up the slack.  Things will get a little better in 2012, with the total market contracting by just 4% and digital growing by 7% to hit $5.4 billion, and 41% of total revenues.

Now let’s take a look at what 2011 was like for three of digital music’s key players (Facebook, Spotify and Pandora) and what 2012 holds for them:

Facebook
2011.  Arguably the biggest winner in digital music in 2011, Facebook played a strategic masterstroke with the launch of its Digital Content Dashboard at the f8 conference.  Subtly brilliant, Facebook’s music strategy is underestimated at the observer’s peril.  Without investing a cent in music licenses, Facebook has put itself at the heart of access-based digital music experiences.   It even persuaded Spotify – the current darling of the music industry – to give it control of the login credentials of Spotify’s entire user base. Facebook’s Socially Integrated Web Strategy places Facebook at the heart of our digital lives.  And it’s not just Facebook that is benefiting: Spotify attributed much of its 500,00 new paying subs gained in October and November to the Facebook partnership.

2012. Facebook is quietly collecting unprecedentedly deep user data from the world’s leading streaming music services.  By mid-2012 Facebook should be in a position to take this to the record labels (along with artist profile page data) in the form of a series of product propositions.  Expect whatever is agreed upon to blend artist level content with music service content to create a 360 user experience.  But crucially one that does not require Facebook to pay a penny to the labels.

VERDICT: The sleeping giant of digital music finally stepped up to the plate in 2011 and will spend 2012 consolidating its new role as one of the (perhaps even *the*) most important conduit(s) in digital music history.

Spotify.
2011.  It would be puerile not to give Spotify credit for a fantastic year.  Doubts about the economics of the service and long term viability remain, but nonetheless 2011 was a great year for the Swedish streaming service.  It finally got its long-fought-for US launch and also became Facebook’s VIP music service partner. Spotify started the year with 840,000 paying subscribers and hit 2.5 million in November.  It should finish the year with around 200,000 more.  Its total active user base is now at 10 million. But perhaps the most significant development was Spotify’s Developer platform announcement,paving the way for the creation of a music experience ecosystem.  Spotify took an invaluable step towards making Music the API.

2012: Expect Spotify’s growth trajectory to remain strong in 2012.  It should break the 3 million pay subscribers mark in February and should finish the year with close to 5 million.  And it will need those numbers because the funnel of free users will grow even more dramatically, spurred by the Facebook integration.  But again it will be the developer platform that will be of greatest and most disruptive significance.  By the end of 2012 Spotify will have a catalogue of music apps that will only be rivalled by Apple’s App Store.  But even Apple won’t be able to come close to the number of Apps with unlimited music at their core.  More and more start ups will find themselves opting to develop within Spotify rather than getting bogged down with record label license negotiations.  Some will find the platform a natural extension of their strategy (e.g. Share My Playlists) but others will feel competitive threat (e.g. Turntable FM).  If Spotify can harness its current buzz and momentum to create the irresistible force of critical mass within the developer community, it will create a virtuous circle of momentum with Apps driving user uptake and vice versa.  And with such a great catalogue of Apps, who would bet against Spotify opening an App Store in 2012?

VERDICT: Not yet the coming of age year, but 2011 was nonetheless a pivotal year paving the way for potentially making 2012 the year in which Spotify lays the foundations for long term sustainability.

Pandora
2011.  Though 2011 wasn’t quite the coming of age year for Spotify it most certainly was for Pandora.  In June Pandora’s IPO saw 1^st day trading trends reminiscent of the dot.com boom years.    By July it had added more than 20 million registered users since the start of the year to hit 100 million in total and an active user base of 36 million, representing 3.6% of entire US radio listening hours.  But Pandora also felt the downs of being a publically listed company, with flippant traders demonstrating their fear that Spotify’s US launch would hurt Pandora.

2012: And those investors do have something of a point:  whatever founder Tim Westergren may say, Spotify will hurt Pandora.  A portion of Pandora’s users used Pandora because it was the best available (legal) free music service.  Those users will jump ship to Spotify.  This will mean that Pandora’s total registered user number will not get too much bigger than 100 million in 2012 and the active number will likely decline by mid-year.  After that though, expect things to pick up for Pandora and active user numbers to grow again.  The long term outlook is very strong.  Pandora is the future of radio.  It, and services like it, will get an increasingly large share of radio listening hours with every month that passes in 2012, and with it a bigger share of radio ad revenues.  Pandora will be better off without the Spotify-converts, leaving it with its core user base of true radio fans. Spotify’s new radio play will obviously be a concern for Pandora  but this is Pandora’s core competency, and only a side show for Spotify.  Expect Pandora to up their game.

VERDICT: Since launching in November 2005 Pandora have fought a long, dogged battle to establish themselves as part of the music establishment, and 2011 was finally the year they achieved that.  There will be choppy waters in 2012 but Pandora will come out of it stronger than it went in.

Free Report: The Socially Integrated Web

I have just released the latest Music Industry Blog report:

The Socially Integrated Web: Facebook’s Content Strategy and the Battle of the Ecosystems

If you are a subscriber to the blog you should already have received your free copy. If you do not yet subscribe to this blog then simply enter your email address into the ‘Email Subscription’ form to the left hand side on this page and you will receive your free copy of the report.  (If you are a subscriber but have not received your copy yet then please email musicindustryblog AT gmail DOT COM.)

Here are some highlights from the report:

The Universal Content Dashboard

Change is afoot in the Internet.  Facebook’s new Socially Integrated Web strategy is set to make Facebook one of the most important conduits on the web.  Facebook is pushing itself further out into content experiences in the outside web while simultaneously pulling more of them into Facebook itself.

The Timeline announcements at f8 saw Facebook establishing itself as a universal content dashboard – a 21st century cable company for the Internet – establishing its own content ecosystem to compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon. While traditional ecosystems are defined by hardware and paid services, Facebook’s is defined by data and user experience.

Joining The Digital Dots

The Socially Integrated Web is the strategic architecture of Facebook’s digital content strategy.  It is a strategy that others’ are following too but that Facebook is currently doing best.  Facebook has been quietly putting many of the building blocks of the Socially Integrated Web into place over the last year or so, but the most dramatic moves were announced at Facebook’s f8 conference in September.  It was there that we heard about Facebook’s controversial Timeline feature.  This – along other functions such as Likes on websites across the web – are Facebook’s attempts to join the dots in our increasingly fragmented and cluttered digital lives.

Four Ecosystems Now Define The Content Landscape

It was not so long ago that content ecosystems were the domain of device manufacturers like Apple, but all of that is changing.  Indeed now it is possible to view the entire digital content landscape through the lenses of 4 different types of content ecosystem (see figure).  If we think about content along two axis, one of ownership and one of openness we end up with four key groups of content types, each of which in-turn leads to a different form of content ecosystem:

• Device Based Ecosystems. The traditional territory of content ecosystems, these are defined by consumer devices such as the iPad, the Kindle and the xBox.  They revolve around device based consumption of owned content that is either purchased from an integrated store (and typically is tied to the ecosystem with some use of DRM) or is sourced from a user’s own collection.
• User Based ecosystems.  These are based upon users’ own content collections.  The photos and videos we create ourselves and all of the unprotected professionally created content we have either ripped or purchased.  We create our own ecosystem walls around this content by choosing who we share this content with and where.
• Open-Web Based ecosystems.  These are the least structured of ecosystems, based around openly accessible web content destinations.  At first sight these might look anything but like ecosystems, yet there are numerous tactics that open-web sites increasingly use to create virtual ecosystems.  For example a video destination might define a narrow set of partner sites where it will make its content available, forcing the user to stay within that ecosystem of sites in order to access that content.
• Protected-web based ecosystems. Here content companies pull walls down around their content. Sometimes these walls are paid, sometimes they are free but password restricted, sometimes they are created by making content experiences app based, ensuring the content experience can only happen within the app.

To receive your free copy of the report simply enter your email address into the ‘Email Subscription’ form to the left hand side on this page.

Here is the full table of contents:

Setting The Scene

• Joining The Digital Dots

Analysis

• Preparing For Long-Term Competitive Strategy
• Facebook, The Early Follower 21^st Century Portal
• Four Ecosystems Now Define The Content Landscape
• Ecosystem Co-existence And Competition
• The Reach And Risks Of Facebook’s Universal Content Dashboard

Conclusion