Spotify Archives

Drake becomes first artist to achieve 1 billion streams in one week

Drake shatters streaming record

17/07/2018

UPDATE 17/07/2018: Drake’s Scorpion album achieved another first when he confirmed on Instagram that his album was streamed over a billion times worldwide in its opening week. Spotify accounted for 573 million streams with Apple Music notching up 498 million streams. Streaming figures for the first week of release in the US were 321 million on Spotify and 401 million on Apple Music. On its first day of release, Drake’s Scorpion shattered both Spotify’s and Apple […]

Spotify reverses ‘No Hate Content’ policy

02/06/2018

Spotify has reversed its ‘No hate content and hateful conduct’ policy introduced in May 2018 following controversy since its introduction. The policy that removed R Kelly’s music from their playlists prompted wide criticism and a record industry backlash. In a post on the Spotify blog, the company stated that it ‘believed our intentions were good’ but considered the language it used was ‘vague’ causing ‘confusion and concern’ and resulted from not spending ‘enough time getting […]

Spotify announces new hate content and hateful conduct policy

16/05/2018

Spotify has announced a new hate and hateful conduct policy which aims to identify and remove hate content across its streaming platform. The company has partnered with a number of advocacy groups to help it police both content and artists who are seen as not reflecting Spotify’s values. Spotify’s aim is not to censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behaviour but it wants ‘our editorial decisions – what we choose to program – […]

Spotify downloads could predict economic mood

04/05/2018

Data on music downloads from Spotify has been used to help the Bank of England predict people’s sentiment which turns out to be as accurate in tracking consumer spending as surveys of consumer confidence according to Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. In a speech given at King’s Business School, entitled Will Big Data keeps its Promise? Mr Haldane gave an overview of how Big Data was helping the Bank to improve […]

Spotify unveils new free streaming service

25/04/2018

Spotify has unveiled its completely revamped ad-supported free streaming service which puts the emphasis on music discovery and ease of use for mobile users. Spotify believes that users of its free service can be converted to either upgrading to one of its paid subscriptions or be tempted to buy download or physical products. So powerful is their argument that they have convinced record companies to support them with product and cut them with a deal […]

What is a Smart Speaker?

15/04/2018

Smart Speakers are internet-connected speakers controlled by voice commands coupled with an artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) assistant responding to the owner’s requests. These voice controlled personal assistants are often referred to as Voice Assistants (VA). The most popular VAs are Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Google Assistant with Siri powering Apple’s HomePod and Cortana controlling Microsoft enabled devices. Traditional electronics companies are rapidly playing catchup and Samsung recently announced its own Bixby powered speaker which is scheduled […]

Spotify goes public

06/04/2018

In March this year Spotify filed for a direct listing (Spotify takes the first step to going public) on the New York Stock Exchange. The Swedish owned company made its stock market debut (4th April 2018) with a market capitalisation of $30bn although that dropped to $27bn after early profit taking. In 2017 Spotify generated $4.99bn in revenue, up from $3.6bn in 2016. Its number of paid subscribers grew by 46% with monthly active users […]