Spotify For Artists Will Charge For Some Services, says CEO Daniel Ek
Spotify will charge for some Spotify For Artists products and services, CEO Daniel Ek stated during last week's earnings call. While "unlikely" that the it will charge for data, this mark's the first time that the streamer has said it will monetize any of the services that it has touted as empowering creators.
Spotify for Artists was brought up repeatedly during the earnings call:
- Charging For Spotify For Artists – Analyst Dick Delfas asked, "Do you have any plans to charge artists for data or for promoting work on the paid service in any way?" Ek: "Our strategy in our marketplace side of the business is the same as we have on the rest of Spotify, which is it's a freemium business, meaning there will be a certain amount of products which artists and labels can get for free, and there are others which we will charge money for. So, that's an evolving strategy when it comes to our product portfolio. Data specifically is very unlikely to be one of those things that we'll charge for."
Finding & Monetizing "Real Fans" – Analyst Eric Sheridan asked, "How should we think about the e-commerce opportunity — ticketing, merchandising, et cetera — on the platform in the coming years?" Ek answered: I think if we up-level this and not talk about the specifics of merchandising and ticketing, and instead talk about the fact that at Spotify, our goal is to connect artists and fans, and as part of that, for many artists, they have a huge audience on Spotify, and we have a better ability – we believe – over time to discern who are real fans versus not. As part of that, you could expect us to enable opportunities as part of our marketplace strategy to create more opportunities for creators to upsell those superfans various products.
Strong Adoption – 250,000 creators use Spotify for Artists monthly. "We expect these tools to help us continue to provide the largest opportunity for the widest group of creators and artists, said CEO Daniel Ek.
On Spotify's New Free (For Now) Upload Service - Ek said: "… we're very encouraged with the early results of this beta test in the U.S., and so far, we've now seen on the new music submission more than 67,000 artists that have submitted their works through that product and over 10,000 new artists that have been added to editorial playlists for the very first time, connecting their music with thousands of new fans, so we're very encouraged by the early results of this."
