A premium level works out to about $10 a month for use on all devices -- and roughly matches the cost of most other online music options. A less-expensive option allows only for listening on a PC or a PlayStation, at about half the price.
Sony is running a special for a limited time that cuts the price of the premium subscription that iOS users -- and any mobile device user -- need to run the Music Unlimited app.
Members of PlayStation Plus, a video game service for the Sony console, can get a year-long Music Unlimited premium subscription to $41.99, or about $3.50 a month. That brings the price below Slacker's low-end subscription allowing offline listening -- though PS Plus members are already paying about $50 a year for the gaming service.
Those without PS Plus can still get a $59.99 special rate for a year, or about half off.
Sony is losing money on it (since royalties is about $7 a month) but it's good for users.
Top50 Most Popular Tracks on Spotify
1. Gotye f/Kimbra - "Somebody That I Used To Know" 128,164,582
2. Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe" 115,755,417
3. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis f/Wanz - "Thrift Shop" 109,015,603
4. David Guetta f/Sia - "Titanium" 100,402,654
5. Fun. f/Janelle Monae - "We Are Young" 99,864,430
...
Sia ha impact
One day Spotify will be WW and that will make it an unstoppable force.
Exclusive: Music industry legend Jimmy Iovine wants to launch his Spotify competitor with a big splash, which is why he's trying to partner with a wireless carrier.
For Beats, the primary advantage of partnering with a carrier is the ability to piggyback monthly fees on top of carrier bills, making it easier for consumers to pay for the music service and also less likely to cancel the service once payments are automatically integrated with an existing bill. Carriers such as AT&T can also leverage their existing relationships with millions of customers to sell them a music service on their new mobile devices.
For AT&T and other carriers, a music service has the potential to reduce customer churn, a costly phenomenon in the cell phone business. Telecommunications companies have looked to Cricket Communications' popular Muve Music Service as an example of how music can generate additional revenue and create an incentive for subscribers to remain with Cricket.
Muve Music (from prepaid carrier Cricket) is the biggest music subscription in the USA in term of paying users. Yes, it is bigger than Spotify.
Their wireless plan is simple:
$50 a month: unlimited music streaming/download, unlimited talk, unlimited text, 1GB of data
$60 a month: unlimited music streaming/download, unlimited talk, unlimited text, 2.5 GB of data
At the current 59% growth rate, Streaming Revenue for 2013 will be at $1,642 million.
That's assuming that the rate of growth will remain constant, which it most likely won't. 59% growth is a harder number to sustain as the revenues increase.
And in Denmark, a recent study commissioned by the Danish recording industry found that legal streaming services undercut online piracy. Fully 81 percent of those surveyed who admitted to illegally downloading music claimed to have stopped after gaining access to a legal streaming service.
The most widespread music subscription service in the United States is not actually the biggest subscription service.
Muve Music has "nearly 1.7 million subscribers," a company spokesperson tells Billboard. That most likely makes it the top music subscription service in the country by number of subscribers.
And guess who own Muve Music now?
AT&T....after its takeover of Cricket Wireless for $4 billion USD.
IFPI Sweden released figures Sunday that show gains in streaming led to a 12% gain in recorded music revenues in the first half of the year. A week and a half ago we learned that streaming had helped drive a 14% gain in recorded music revenues in Norway.
Streaming revenues gained 39% to $41 million and accounted for 75% of total revenue and 94% of digital revenue. Physical sales fell 24% to $13.8 million and represented 25% of total revenues.
Sweden first half of 2013
Streaming Revenue: $41 million
Digital download Revenue: $2 million
Physical CD Revenue: $13.8 million