Spotify, Apple, YouTube And The Streaming Pincer Movement [Mark Mulligan]

By Mark Mulligan on Music Industry Blog

The Financial Times yesterday reported that Apple is planning on integrating Beats Music into an iOS update as early as the first quarter of 2015. Which means the entire base of Apple’s 500 odd million iOS devices suddenly become Apple’s acquisition funnel. As I wrote back in May, this was always the strategy Apple was most likely to pursue. Of course being available to 500 iTunes customers is not anything like converting them all. Just ask U2. But it does give Beats Music – if Apple keep the name – a reach like no other subscriptions service on the planet. Especially if Apple is willing to roll out free trials to them all. Currently just 8% of consumers in the US and UK have experienced a subscription trial, which translates into approximately 30 million people. Even if Apple does not quickly succeed in taking subscriptions to the mainstream it is about to take subscription trials to the mainstream, which is the crucial first step.

Add this to YouTube’s recently announced Music Key subscription service, which should be aspiring to get 5 million or so subscribers in its first year to be considered a success, and a picture emerges of Spotify squeezed in the middle of a streaming pincer movement (see figure). In the near term Apple will be hoping to win back a lot of its lost high spending iTunes customers from Spotify. Longer term it will be looking to grow the market.

None of this means anything like the end for Spotify. Instead it will force Spotify to up its already high quality game. Competitive markets thrive far more than ones in which one or two key players dominate. It could mean that Spotify’s potential flotation or sale value is tempered for a while, which could push out Spotify’s exit timelines until it has proven its worth in a more competitive marketplace. But Spotify has the distinct advantage of being a) the incumbent and b) a pure play. Spotify, Deezer and Rhapsody are all in this game simply for music. That means each and every one of them has a laser focus on making the best possible music service proposition they can. The same is quite simply not the case for either Apple or YouTube. They will need to leverage that asset in their conversations with rights holders to ensure they are given more flexibility in terms to drive true marketplace innovation and experimentation.

But Spotify et al would be foolish to underestimate the scale of the challenge they will face. Apple has the largest installed base of digital music buyers on the planet (see figure). As creditable as Spotify’s 12.5 million paying subscribers is, it pales compared to Apple’s 200 million iTunes music buyers. Also Apple has many additional assets at its disposal. Integrating into iOS is just one tactic it can employ. Spotify et al depend on Apple’s platform for much of their survival. But there is no reason Apple has to play truly fair.Amazon set a platform precedent with its treatment of Hachette that Apple will have been watching closely. Don’t expect anything too obvious, but little tricks like tilting app store optimizing in favour of Beats over Spotify can go a long way.

Things are hotting up, no doubt. But Apple’s arrival in the subscription market will take the sector to a whole new level, and a high tide should rise all boats.